


Only Change Endures

by these_words



Series: Changes [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M, Multiple Crossovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:15:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/these_words/pseuds/these_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faith picks up her life on Earth, but she misses Loki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stranded

Faith learned as a child not to ask questions if she didn't want to get hit. Questions annoyed adults, even the teachers at school. Students who asked questions were singled out for punishment by the nuns and other students, so she kept her mouth shut. People expected her to fail, anyway. She didn't come to school with the basics, like the other kids. Still, she was bored in class. The subjects seemed so obvious and so useless. After a while, she'd missed so many classes, she was lost. Nobody cared. She learned to dial down the questions so she wouldn't seem slow. She took a seat in the back. She stayed there the rest of her life, trying to look like she had everything under control, trying not to look confused or scared.

Loki was the only one who ever told her she was smart. She sure felt stupid now.

When light lifted the dark around her, Faith discovered she was in a large room with towering walls of warm, polished wood. She could have held a banquet for a hundred people in the huge room. Massive beams made patterns across the ceiling. The floors appeared to be made of stone. The floor was covered with expansive, fur throw rugs. She was sitting on one of the rugs in the middle of the room. Empty leather armchairs and small couches sat ready to welcome guests around gaping fireplaces on either side of the room. The hearths were taller than she was. They had no soot or logs in them.

Faith threw off the furs Loki had grabbed when he carried her away, the ones she'd wrapped around herself when they sped to Angrboda's cave. At least she’d worn her Earth street clothes underneath the furs, her sweaters, jeans and boots, things she could move in. She took off the fur parka Loki had given her. She hoped her clothes fit whatever this place was.

Faith got up to examine the world where Loki had left her. She drifted towards a brighter light. She felt like she was sleepwalking. She hoped she wasn't getting to the part that turned into a nightmare.

The brighter room overlooked a lake. The room was a combination kitchen and dining area with windows facing the outside on one wall and on the corner sides. There were appliances, like those on Earth. They were brand-new and fancy, gleaming in the sunlight.

A deep porch ran along the front of the room. A table ran along half the room near the window, chairs aligned haphazardly along its width. On the table was a folder topped by a pile of keys hooked to a figure eight made of wrought iron. She put the keys in her pocket and picked up the folder in an absent-minded way. A clunk of documents fell out: a New York bank account with five hundred million in it; a deed to the house; credit cards; a driver's license and a passport; a birth certificate; several pink slips for cars -- all in her name. The deed said the house was in Maine. All the paperwork was about a year old. Loki had been planning this for a while, without saying a word to her.

She put the folder down and sat staring at the black lake. The trees in the forest opposite the lake shimmered in brown, gold, red and orange as leaves gently dropped from the branches. Behind them stood taller, green conifers. Occasionally, the water on the lake would pop with fish going after insects Faith couldn't see. She didn't see any birds, either.

She wondered if she was caught in an illusion. Loki was skilled at creating those. The view was a lot like her dream on Jotunheim, except that dream had a meadow instead of a lake. She thought that if it was an illusion, he'd probably get bored with it pretty fast. And then, maybe they would be together again. 

Instead of feeling comforted by her thought or awed by his skill, however, she was numb. She tried to remember the life already slipping away from her. What had she been thinking about when Loki severed their bond?

Images of the body of Angrboda and her midwife sister, and the faces of their missing children, rushed at Faith’s mind. Only by forcing herself to look again at the lake, forcing herself to think of the kids' future in a positive way, did she avoid being swamped by a wave of panic and anguish. She took calming breaths and imagined Jordan gliding through the water, Fennie loping along the beach, Helen walking among the trees. She hoped they were safe. If she had the chance, she would fight to free them or protect them.

She saw a block of dark wood on the counter, filled with a forest of knives. Pulling the knives out one-by-one revealed that they were forged entirely of metal, their handles worked with intricate symbols. She palmed a big carving knife. She didn’t have a sheath, so she just held it in her hand. She wasn’t afraid in the house, and she didn’t hold it in front of her. It was just a good idea to be ready.

She reentered the room she first found herself in with a mixture of hope that Loki would be there and a reluctance to find herself alone. The room was eerie quiet, like it was watching to see her react. There were books. This was a place Loki had been in, then. Maybe it meant he was coming back. He sounded so final, though, when he said goodbye.

Faith wanted to sleep and blot out the reality of the place she was in. If this was an illusion, maybe her wanting a bed would make one appear. But if that was the case, she could just wish herself back to Jotunheim. She was never that great at magic.

The house was warm, though she didn’t smell fire, didn't hear the roar of a gas heater or the click of radiators. The heat rose from the floor. She wondered if Loki had set a spell. 

Beyond the great room were doors, three on either side of a wide passageway. The largest room was at the end. That last room had double doors that opened like they were making a royal pronouncement. The bedroom within was as rustic as the main room, with decor that could have come out of _Bonanza_. The room was as wide as the house was wide, another ballroom-sized cavern, with a fireplace and many doors. It had a row of windows so high up that Faith couldn't reach them, but she could see that they looked into a thick collection of trees.

She went back to the main room, curled up on a small sofa, and closed her eyes against the darkened space, hoping to drift off.

After tossing around for a couple of hours, staring into the room, she gave up trying to sleep. Banging into a chair as she got up, she remarked out loud, "Could use some light in this place." Every light in the room turned on. She nearly jumped out of her skin. She heard a strange man’s voice say calmly, "Would you like anything else?"

She wanted to call out, "Loki? Are you here?" but why would he hide from her? He must have left her with some kind of talking house. She was a little angry about that, so she said, "I'd like it if this house would keep quiet until I'm actually certifiable."

Faith stormed into the kitchen to see if there was any food. The refrigerator had to be industrial-sized. It was also empty. The cupboards only held a box of Lucky Charms. The box had been opened. She reached through the plastic paper and pulled out a green shamrock. The marshmallow was stale but edible. She ate half the box before she put it aside, feeling bloated and nauseous.

She decided to explore the rest of the house. A door off the kitchen led to a downstairs rec room with equipment for training, along with a shower and a sauna. A panel in a wall revealed a selection of weapons. She ran her hand over them. The hard certainty of the weapons together with the no-nonsense smell of the gym brought the first sense of familiarity she'd had in the house. She put down the carving knife and strapped on a holster that held a sweet blade she could use for hand-to-hand or throwing.

The downstairs also had an entertainment room with rows of small couches facing a white wall. She switched on the remote and found she had satellite TV, projected onto the wall in any size she wanted. Fooling with the remote brought up a computer screen. She pulled out a drawer from the table in front of the sofa and found a keyboard. She'd learned how to use a computer on the ship she and Loki took across the Atlantic. Hitting a few keys, she discovered that she had spent almost three Earth years on Jotunheim. It had felt much shorter.

She didn't really care about anything that had happened on Earth since Loki took her to Jotunheim. It was enough to know that Earth still existed. Any homesickness she felt was soon swallowed up by surviving Odin's curse, helping with Loki's work, and getting to know Angrboda and their children.

She flipped through the TV stations and found a Scooby-Doo movie set in a haunted mansion. Those usually cheered her up, and it was one she hadn't seen before. But her mind kept wandering. Eventually, she left the TV room to do more exploring. 

She found a garage past the rec room. The cars she'd left with Spike were parked there, her gas guzzler and the little Honda, with other more vehicles and room for more. The motorcycle was on a trailer. Maybe Spike brought her rides here, she thought with excitement. Then she realized, probably not. She was sure he would have painted the windows on the Mercury black, no matter what she said. The car was spotless. It had Maine plates, too.

She also found a sleek Aston Martin, glittering in a green so dark it looked black, with deep yellow racing stripes. Sex on wheels. It only had a few hundred miles on it. She wondered if she could find service for it in Maine.

There was a large Airstream Land Yacht with a hitch on it. Next to it was a Land Rover that looked like it could survive the end of the world. That was handy, since there was always an Apocalypse lurking around the corner, in her experience.

She flipped through her keys and found the one to the trailer. The interior was a warm butter color, with wood-paneled floors. It was built like a boat, each piece doing double duty then able to be stowed away. The trailer looked like it had never been used.

She wondered why Loki had bought these things, why he felt this was a good thing, why it was all so big. Why did he put everything in her name? Was this the palace he promised her? Was he trying to buy her off with extravagance? ‘Cause if he knew her, he would have known riches made her uncomfortable. She didn't need all this. The house might have been a cabin, like she told him she wanted, but she wanted it with Loki, not alone. Alone no longer made any sense.

Faith opened a side door that led to a gravel drive. She noticed a worked plot on the side, but no vegetables. A couple of what were probably fruit trees, with their leaves falling off, bordered the plot. They looked too small to bear fruit, but what did she know? Nothing about gardening, that was for sure.

She walked down a smooth grade to a pebbled beach at the lake. It was the only beach. The shore everywhere else on the lake was rugged and steep, with rocks and fallen branches and even fallen trees, with pines standing right at the lake edge. She didn't see any other buildings around the lake.

She put her hand in the water and drew it out quickly. The water was cold enough to bite. She wasn't going swimming anytime soon, not unless she miraculously grew a coat of fur like an otter.

Turning back, she saw that there were stacks of logs on all sides of the house. It looked like she was living in a lumber yard.

She took stock of the situation. She was hungry. She didn't want to leave the house, in case Loki came there and she missed him. But she had to eat. And, if he wanted her, he could find her.

So, she went back to the kitchen and found a garage opener with all the papers. She took the credit cards and stuffed them in her pocket. She grabbed her parka and slipped it on.

Using the automatic opener to lift the garage door, Faith stood on the threshold and sighed. She called out, "I love you" to the cool air... in case he was listening. It was like praying to a god, in a way, except she knew he existed. But he wasn't there. All she had was a wish that he could hear her, and the empty whistle of the wind as an answer.

She didn't know what kind of terrain she was going to encounter. Also, if she bought a ton of groceries, she'd need something large to bring them back. She climbed into the Land Rover.

She navigated down the dirt trail leading away from the house. A dashboard GPS had been programmed for a town 50 miles away. It wasn't a great distance when she lived in the Southwest, but it was probably a bigger deal in rural Maine, if that was where she really was.

The dirt path led through dense forests where shadows didn't allow the muddy patches of ground to dry or, apparently, road surfaces to be cleared. Faith gained a little altitude. As she looked back, she was surprised to see that, from above, the cabin looked like a huge pile of logs at the end of a road next to a lake. A person would have to be right in front of the house to know it was a building.

She got to a larger dirt road and turned left. The road was wider but not much better maintained. Ruts opened beneath the Rover as she drove. Tree branches and pine cones littered the way. There were no signs. There were no turnoffs to other houses. She seemed to be embedded in the wilderness on the sole artery leading away. It was like she was on some kind of fire trail.

The landscape was breathtaking, though. She constantly had to pull her eyes back to the road as they kept being drawn to the scenery surrounding her. The woods were sparse but glorious in green and autumn colors. The lakes were deep turquoise mirrors reflecting a broad sky with rolling gray clouds. Moose and deer posed majestically in the fields or near the lakes. An eagle whirled overhead. She had a strong urge to stop, and the Rover seemed to agree, as it veered sharply to the side of the road. She stopped and opened the window to breathe in the chilly air. The vast light made her feel renewed. The bowing pine branches lifted her spirits with their clean scent. A steady wind blew against her face, bracing but not freezing.

She had grown used to the rocky and treacherous terrain on Jotunheim, the perpetual blue haze, the ice which gave little comfort in its slipperiness, seemingly hard and impenetrable, but liable to crumble and break when the unwary least expected it. The view before her was so much easier, softened by trees and sloping hills. The mountains peaks sat vigil over a meandering stream and a carpet of forest. The tallest mountain seemed to have once been a volcano. Jotunheim was too cold and dead to have similar geography, and these mountains were mounds compared to Jotun's twisted spires and knife-edged cliffs.

A giant logging truck came pummeling along the road. Faith realized it was a lucky thing she stopped. She wouldn't have had time to avoid the truck if she had been driving. She waved to the truck's operator. She caught the flash of a hand as the behemoth passed and disappeared as the road turned.

Faith turned her gaze to the sky. Gray clouds, dark and determined, traveled across its surface. She got back in the car and headed off, wanting to buy the stuff she needed and get back to the house as soon as she could. She worried that it would be hard to navigate if the sky got darker or it started to rain. There were no lights on the pitted road. She didn't want to miss the turnoff to her house.

She eventually found a small store in an otherwise deserted spot. She thought she could get some frozen pizza and bring it back to the house.

The place looked like a faded painting from the 1950s. The storefront had a crudely hand-lettered sign on a wooden plank over its door that said "Tugger's Store." A round, rusting gas pump had pride of place on a concrete strip in front of the building. Chopped firewood reached the roof where it had been tossed in haphazard piles along one side of the store.

She knocked several times and finally heard movement from inside. A thin, middle-aged man in a faded flannel shirt, threadbare khakis, and three-days' growth of scruffy beard opened the door a crack. He was wearing novelty moose slippers with fur so grody, it stood out in strips instead of luxurious pile.

"Saw your sign," Faith said in a stand-up way. She hoped she didn't seem out of place in her fur parka, like some tourist who got lost on a trip to the ski resort. The fur was necessary in Jotunheim, but if this really was Maine, the coat was way too warm and probably too showy.

He stared at her with bleary red eyes and swallowed a couple of times, like he was surfacing for air. He shook his head, which might have cleared it. He gave Faith a good looking over, then squinted beyond her to the Land Rover.

"We're closed," he announced, his ragged voice carrying a slight slur.

"Just need a couple of things," Faith insisted, smiling widely and cocking her hip, trying to look pleasing. At the same time, her hand went to the knife around her waist to make sure it was there. She mentally kicked herself for how fast she got back into her old ways. He was the first person she’d talked to since Jotunheim. She didn’t have to con him or mistrust him. He was human like her.

He looked her over again and shrugged his shoulders, opening the door to let her pass. She waited for him to go into the store first. He frowned slightly and staggered further into the room, tripping up to a wall and molesting a switch into throwing a faint light on the interior of a tiny, rectangular room.

The set-up was pretty basic, some crates near a window with a few sacks of potatoes, a few sacks of onions, and a few turnips. Tacked-up shelves held powdered milk and some canned goods, and boxed matches, cans of fuel, and other camping stuff. A few aluminum pots and fleece blankets were piled on the floor. A couple of lanterns hung on the wall. Boxes of ammunition overran several shelves on another wall. A potbellied stove, not in use, squatted in the middle of the room. A paper sign was taped to the wall over an old cash register. The sign said "No Credit."

A door opposite the entrance revealed a back room, where the sound of a television played. The smell of beer seeped into the store.

"You got frozen pizza?"

He had been giving her a speculative once-over, but seemed to get bored after she asked her question. "No."

"Is there another store around here?"

"Greenville."

Faith looked at the lowering sky. "Any places to stay nearby?"

"Greenville," he repeated with finality. "Everything here's been closed since Labor Day."

"OK, thanks."

Faith drew away from the tiny outpost with a sinking feeling. Greenville was not far away on the map, but on this road, in the dark, the map didn't matter.

Eventually, signs appeared and she knew she was headed for Greenville along the Golden Road. Asphalt replaced the dirt, though it wasn't a tremendous improvement, as the surface was full of potholes and buckles, not to mention logging debris. More and more buildings appeared, resorts advertising natural experiences and the supply stores that supported them.

She rounded a large lake and Greenville came up. It was obviously a proud little town. Though she guessed Greenville had a permanent population about the size of Little Cruci's, it looked like tourism significantly increased the transient numbers of people in the Maine village. The lake was a big deal, judging from the signs.

“ATM” flashed at her in neon from a drive-in bank. She drew out her bank card and glanced nervously at the camera mounted on the corner above the machine. She put in the card, then didn't know what to do. The machine talked to her, suggesting she use her birth date. To her relief, that worked and the machine went on to the next step. She had to remember to change the PIN.

The machine quietly issued a total of two hundred dollars in bright new twenties. The bills looked funny, shinier than she remembered money being. The bills were rougher, too, with bumpy spots. The currency must have changed while she was in Jotunheim.

She strode confidently back to the car. She felt better carrying cash, like she was an honest citizen. She realized she couldn't have paid for anything at the store by the side of the road. She might have bartered the knife or the parka, but they were each probably worth more than the entire store, and they might not have been what the storekeeper wanted, anyway. It saved her a lot of trouble when he turned her away.

It started raining, an instant downpour that turned the landscape a steely gray. Greenville had a Trading Post supermarket, but she decided to look into that later. She needed a place to stay the night. She’d passed what looked like grand resorts and fancy hotels. She asked the GPS to direct her to a good hotel. It lit up and gave her directions. It was a pretty useful machine. She followed its instructions and came to a hill topped by a large, Victorian manor with sweeping green lawns and a nearly-full parking lot.

She expected chintz and clutter, but the lobby was modern and polished. The clerk at the desk was one of those highly-polished professionals who trained at hospitalicizing school or whatever it was called. She wore a business suit in pink. She had perfectly rolled hair, perfectly smooth make-up, and white, gleaming teeth, the kind of total corporate package that always put Faith off.

"May I help you?"

"Got any rooms?"

The clerk became sweetly apologetic, like she was talking to a child. "I'm so sorry, but we've been booked solid for the past year."

Faith was going to ask if there were other places around, when the phone rang and the clerk excused herself to answer it. Faith wondered if she should feel slighted. She was there first. But she wasn't a paying customer.

The clerk seemed astonished when she turned to Faith to announce, "You're in luck. We just received a cancellation for the week!"

"I only need the room for a night."

The clerk informed Faith in a voice probably reserved for telling someone their loved one died that the room usually cost five hundred dollars a night, but they might be able to go as low as four hundred because of the unexpected cancellation.

"Five hundred's fine." Faith tried to seem nonchalant as she handed over her credit card. There was no problem with the payment, though Faith mourned a little inside for spending all that money on a room.

The clerk smiled and handed her the registration forms, explaining all the luxuries Faith could find at the hotel, including a famous restaurant and bar. Faith was in luck, again. The restaurant was only open four days a week. She came on a day it was open.

The clerk examined Faith's license. "Sciguy, no, Scigwen''s... Seaggin's Pond. How do you pronounce that?" she asked, pointing at the word, Sigyn.

Faith had no idea. "You got it the first time."

"But it has an 'n' in it."

"It's silent."

"Oh," the clerk said, looking perplexed. "I've never heard of it. Is that where you're traveling from?"

Faith had to think for a moment. "I was visiting family there and now I'm on my way home. Decided to stop because the weather looked bad."

"Who are your family? Maybe I know them."

"They just moved here. I was helping them set up. Now I'm going back to Boston."

"So you don't live in Sciguy's Pond?"

"It didn't pan out. No work." Man, Faith thought, lying was tough.

"Oh, what do you do?"

"Security consultant," Faith replied. That was a smoother lie, because she'd told it before.

Thankfully, the clerk didn't press. Instead she remarked, "That's a nice coat, by the way. What kind of fur is it?"

Faith clutched her parka close like a security blanket and tried to think of some animal with plush fur that changed colors from clear to white to various shades of blue when it moved. "I don't know. A friend gave it to me."

"I've never seen anything like it."

"He was a good friend."

The clerk put the key on the counter and asked about luggage. Faith said it was in her car and she'd get it later, when the rain let up.

"We can have a bellboy bring it to your room," the clerk offered.

"It’s not a problem," Faith insisted. She just wanted to get away from the front desk and get into a hot bath.

"I'll have someone show you to your door," the clerk continued.

"Aren’t the rooms numbered?" Faith thought she must have seemed cheap, but she had just laid down five hundred for a room. They'd have to make do with that. Besides, she only had twenties. How was she going to tip a busboy? She felt bad, though, because some poor guy probably made his living taking people to their rooms, and here she was stiffing him.

She grabbed the keys off the counter and took the stairs two at a time. She found her room and, closing the door behind her, locked it. She felt like pushing a chair against the doorknob to keep the hotel staff out. She laughed at herself and checked out the room.

It was certainly a smooth place, with her own sitting area, a bathroom of black granite, and wide picture windows lining one wall. It almost reminded her of the place she owned back in Sigyn's Pond, however that was pronounced. The balcony gave a full view of the lawn, which looked like gray felt in the rain. The evenly-clipped grass ran down to the lake, which she could hardly see except to notice that it was huge and probably amazing. This would have been some place without the rain and increasing gloominess.

Just in case, she whispered, "Loki?" The way the car drove her where she needed to go, the way the vacancy occurred -- he had to be aware of her.

Her whisper met with silence.

She drew a hot bath, got in, and felt relaxed for the first time since she got back to Earth. Then the doubts began. She was back where she started, with no skills except killing. She didn't want that life anymore. Though now she was rich. She was also in the middle of nowhere. She wondered again why Loki left her.

Questions and worries besieged her until eventually, the water cooled and her skin wrinkled. She realized she couldn't escape her problems. She had to get out of the tub and get back into the world.

She'd start with dinner. She found the phone and after a few false tries, got the front desk and made a reservation. Then she turned to the pile of brochures about the mountains of Maine and tried to forget everything else. The pamphlet about Mount Katahdin almost did the trick with tales of the ice giants, the storm god Pamola, and the horned serpent Kita-skog.

The restaurant turned out to be a four-star deal. It was the first night of their open streak, in the middle of the week. With that and the rain, there weren't too many diners, which left the waiters with nothing to do but pay attention to Faith. "How is everything?" they must have asked a dozen times, "Can I fill your glass?" One waiter stood over her holding his breath after he poured the wine. It was a brand she’d picked at random. Then she wondered if she shouldn’t have asked their advice about what went with the food. She didn't want to seem dumb, so she went ahead and probably picked the wrong thing. She had no idea how much the wine cost, either. The menu didn't have prices. She figured if she had to ask, she didn't need to know.

"Don't I tip after the meal?" Faith asked, annoyed that he was just standing there.

He smiled as if moving his lips caused him pain. "Of course, madam. Is the wine to madam's satisfaction?"

"What? Oh," she remarked. She remembered that she had to taste it.

She took a swig. It immediately came back up and sat in her throat, but she smiled and said it was fine. She guessed she wasn't getting drunk off wine that night.

Another waiter came to take her order, so she asked, "What do people do for fun in this town?"

He straightened up and recited, "Well, there's hiking. Fishing. Golf. You can take a boat on the water."

"No nightlife?"

"There's dining out."

She got the picture. It was a perfect place for those who loved Mother Nature.

After the waiter left, she tried a few more sips of wine. It repeated on her again, burning right where she swallowed. She could barely stand the taste, either. It was much more watery and sour than the robust, herb-, honey-or berry-infused wine that went her meals on Jotunheim.

Naturally, she thought of Loki. Even though his duties caused him to travel, he had still been her companion, her friend, and her lover. He'd been an entire world to her. When the children were born, that world expanded. Her life had a new purpose.

Now she was sitting in a fancy restaurant, self-conscious because she was by herself, trying to look like the tough girl who was where she wanted to be, where she belonged, smiling too much, looking around too much, pretending the sights were all so interesting when everything she saw didn't move her at all. And she saw everything: the glances the waiters gave each other, the smirks, the lips moving behind bent fingers. She heard the whispered imitations and the giggles. She felt under-dressed and underclass.

Like a dope, she had ordered lobster, because when in Maine, do like the tourists do. Now she had to struggle with the damned things under the scrutiny of the waiters. But she was strong and she tore those lobsters apart before the staff even knew what happened. Of course, she thought of Loki doing the same thing in Las Vegas. She smiled slightly even as her throat tightened and tears began to well in her eyes. She reached for the glass of wine and took a swig to steady her nerves. She was going to get through the rich meal in an uncomfortable restaurant without crying.

Restaurants had always meant all you could eat or pancakes for Faith. Fast food and take out, truck stops and bars, were more her style. Then Loki walked into her life and she went upscale. She must have been showing off when she took him places, acting like she knew her way around. She was his guide, after all.

She rose out of her memories. She had been poking at the salad with her fork for ten minutes. It was ridiculous.

The waiter came by again to ask if she was enjoying the meal. She supposed the food was good. She wolfed the lobster down so quickly she didn't really taste it. She did notice that it was bland compared to the food Loki brought home. He liked things complicated and spicy to the point of being dangerous.

Meanwhile, the room seemed to have gone silent awaiting her judgment. Without raising her eyes, she calmly wiped her hands on her napkin. Giles taught her how to be a proper lady once. She nearly ended up killing Buffy because of it. She forgot who she was. Now she was sitting in a high-end restaurant feeling weird and guilty. She still didn't know who she was.

The food sat uneasy on her stomach, trying to bolt back up. The waiter repeated, "Is everything all right?"

"My stomach's a little upset."

He started flapping around. "I'm so sorry," he said in obvious distress. "Can we get you anything?"

"Do you have any soda?"

They produced a fancy bottle of mineral water with a name Faith couldn't pronounce from a place she'd never heard of. The waiter was going to open the bottle and pour the water for her, but she held her hand over the glass. "I'll just take it back to my room."

"Are you sure?"

"As rain. Just bring me the check. Um, please."

The bill was more than she used to spend on food in three months. But she had the money and she dared anyone to say otherwise. She even left a large tip so there'd be no hard feelings.

She took the bottle of seltzer water up to her room and put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. She peeled off her clothes and jumped into bed. She buried herself in the soft covers that fell on her body like a warm breath. She looked straight out the open window. The view of the lake was still obscured by the rain. The view of the window was obscured by her tears. She didn't sleep.

The downpour stopped before dawn and she watched the sun bring up a clear morning. She marveled at the blue lake, surrounded by trees that came to the edge, crowned by mountains. The view was exhilarating and reassuring at the same time, like the view from her house. It made her feel hopeful. She got out of bed and got her clothes on. She really had to buy some new things to wear.

A little after dawn, Faith found a different person at the desk. She walked right up to him and asked if any place was open for breakfast. He recommended a cafe within walking distance. He even drew it on a map for her, like she'd get lost in the tiny town.

She bought a serviceable change of clothes and some groceries, and got out of Greenville while the morning was still young. The trip back was a lot faster, but she didn't want to take it every week. The logging trucks barreled down the Golden Road oblivious to anything else. The car seemed to have a sensor for trucks that pulled her off the road at crucial moments, however.

She was concerned about finding her turnoff, but again, the car took care of it. Everything had been programmed. When she got close to the garage, the door opened for her. She didn't remember closing it. She wondered if she should worry, but she forgot that thought as soon as the lights came on as she parked the car.

Even though she was far from civilization, she felt like she was home. She went over to the mudroom to drop off her shoes. She'd seen a bunch of slippers there. She picked up a pair. They were too big. Maybe they were Loki's. The tears welled up again and she had to take a moment to gulp some air, but she swallowed and forced the tears back. There were other slippers, big furry ones. They looked like they would fit. She put them on and found she didn't even need socks.

She leaned against a wood-paneled box across from the shelves in the mudroom. The box looked large enough to hold a few bodies. She lifted the lid and found a fully-stocked freezer, with enough food to more than get her through the winter. There was even pizza, some fancy kinds. The cupboards alongside the freezer were filled with canned and dried foods.

The stuff she'd bought had already started thawing, so she carried it upstairs to the kitchen. She put the pizzas in the refrigerator. She decided to hang her change of clothes in the big room. When she opened one of the walk-in closets, she found it full of clothes in her size, all well-made and not too fancy. She dropped her bag on the floor and walked to the other closet, hoping to find it full of Loki's clothes, not that he kept any. When he got his magic back, he just made what he needed on the fly. Sure enough, the other closet was empty. She should have known better, but she felt let down.

Instead of heading to the TV room, her first impulse, she went to the bookshelves in the main room. She switched on a light and ran her eyes over the book titles. The shelves reminded her of Giles' library at his home. The whole thing seemed organized by topic, so many of them. She had no idea what some were about.

She finally recognized the books on magic. Most of these weren't in English, but the subject matter was familiar to her. Next to that was a section that seemed to be about science. She only recognized one book, _Your Baby and You_. The sinking feeling grabbed her again, pulling her under, making her want to cling to the chair and cry.

She couldn’t do that the rest of her life, though. She had to keep going. So, she slid over to the next section of books.

It was a large section with maps and cross-sections of land masses, and lists of facts. There were only a few Earth-language books in that group. Scrolls and films with symbols that flickered on their surfaces when they were unfurled were in with what looked like books of fiction and poetry. There was a section of what must have been art books. She opened one up and saw a graphic reproduction of two serpent-like creatures circling each other, growing larger. She understood with a shock that they must have been mating, as Loki would have said. She made a mental note to come back to those shelves.

She came upon a section of mythology, again with documents of many origins and languages, even a beaten copper plate with pictures inscribed on it, and a wooden tube that concealed a set of brittle stone wind chimes which sounded like they told a story when touched. She couldn't understand the torrent of words, though.

She finally found a book in English on Norse mythology. It was a honking big book with lots of text. She just looked at the pictures. They made her laugh. Loki was nothing like the curly-haired satyr the artist created, and she'd seen Thor, who didn't have big, red, grizzly hair. But the more she looked at the pictures, the more she realized they had the general idea.

Odin was a surprise. He looked terrifying. The caption said he was sacrificing his eye to become the god of wisdom, but how smart could he be to lose an eye for knowledge that only made him unhappy? What kind of person wants to know everything, anyway? Someone real insecure, Faith decided, or with an exaggerated sense of his own importance.

She began to read the first chapter. The story about the origin of the realms was so different from the one Loki had told that she could have been reading fiction. The book had Odin and his brothers killing their father and scattering his parts to, as they told it, create the world. She wondered how much of the story was true.

When she finally finished the chapter, she felt disoriented, like she'd stepped out of time and was just reemerging. Reading did that to her, which is why she didn't like it. She had to be totally present to be a Slayer. Even so, she flipped to the table of contents. She was pleased to see that Loki was in so many stories. She was tempted to read everything with his name in it, skipping the rest. But she resolved to take it slow and make her way through the entire book, little-by-little, pacing herself.

It was getting late. She knew she wouldn't sleep, so she went down to the television room and mused aloud, "What movies do I have?" A polite male voice answered calmly, "What do you wish to see, Ms. Lehane?"

She jumped off the sofa and got into a defensive stance, the remote in one hand and her knife in the other. She mentally cataloged anything near her that she could use as a weapon. "Who's there?"

"I am the house servant, or as my liege prefers, thrall. I am called 'PROTIS.' I am here to manage the house and assist you with whatever you require."

“Gee, all that for me?” Faith was on high alert. She couldn’t see him anywhere. "Where are you?" she asked, swiveling her head in all directions.

"I am in the circuitry of the house. I am based on artificial intelligence developed by the Stark Corporation, refined by my liege from the earlier, much cruder prototype called JARVIS. You may have heard of that version."

"Been kinda busy," Faith said.

"JARVIS is famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view." The voice sounded snooty, almost dismissive.

"Not sure why that should matter to me. So, what are you, again?"

"I am a computer, if you like."

She understood computers, but not on this level. "And you've been watching me the entire time?"

"I have been monitoring your well-being, yes."

"Well, that's not creeptastic at all." Faith didn't know what to think.

The accommodating voice stated, "I can provide any film you wish to see. I merely await your instructions, unless you have changed your mind."

So, not only did the computer have JARVIS issues, he was sassy. "You are programmed to obey me?" 

"That is correct, Ms. Lehane."

"Call me 'Faith.'"

"Very well, Faith."

"Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I did, but you said you didn't want to hear my voice, Faith,” he responded, somewhat peeved. “I was forced to wait until you asked a question I could answer, Faith."

"Was it you who turned on the lights?"

"Yes, it was, Faith."

She was disappointed it was the computer and not Loki. "You don't have to say 'Faith' all the time."

She let down her guard. If the computer wanted to hurt her, it would have done so already. If Loki set it up, she had to trust it.

She asked, "What exactly do you do around here?"

"At the moment, I monitor the building systems, watch the perimeter and grounds, pay bills, make arrangements for deliveries, and so forth. I also direct the various vehicles when they leave the grounds, such as your Land Rover. I am capable of much more, naturally. Where you are concerned, however, my job is to maintain the house and provide for your comfort. I can also supply 'company' if requested." The last statement was said with distaste.

She sensed some condescension in his tone. At least he didn't repeat her name. "What do you mean, capable of more?"

“I manage several other properties for my liege.” She almost heard hesitation, but he continued. "He has required my assistance monitoring and making discreet inquiries of remote systems throughout the world. I have also made several arrangements of an unusual nature for him."

She got the picture. "Your liege -- that's Loki, right?"

"My liege is the king of Jotunheim, formerly king of Asgard, also known as Loki, your mate."

“So that's what he is.” Faith almost laughed at this way of describing him, but she also felt relieved that it didn’t refer to Loki as her “ex.” “He didn't tell you when he'd be back here, did he?"

The computer sounded regretful when it said, "I am sorry, Faith. He did not."

She sank back into the sofa. "Fine. Do you have any holiday movies, you know, the Hallmark kind, where all problems are solved and everyone ends up happy?"

The computer smugly announced, "I can produce 213 titles fitting that description."

"Good. One of those. Pick any one. I don't suppose you make popcorn, too?"

A small cabinet opened in the coffee table that was so long and wide it could have held several world conquest games. Faith could smell the corn popping. There was a special machine in the cabinet which held a popcorn maker.

"Would you like a topping on your popcorn? I have caramel, white pepper, truffle oil, grated cheddar, peanut…"

"Butter is fine."

The machine pinged and opened. Robotic arms tipped the container of freshly-popped corn into a paper box, then drizzled freshly-melted butter on top. The arms placed the popcorn on the table surface in front of the machine. The machine then folded up and sealed itself to turn into a little dishwasher.

"Thanks, Protip," Faith said, hefting the box of popcorn onto her lap.

"PROTIS," the computer corrected. "It's an acronym for Perfected Reliationability Outperforms Tinman’s Information System."

"Wow. Pick that name yourself? "

"My liege felt it best described my purpose. Protase was also the younger brother to Gervase."

"All right, then..." Faith said in a dubious voice.

She settled back to watch a movie about star-crossed lovers who worked it out and became stronger in the process. She sighed contentedly.

In the morning, she woke up on the coach. Even though she finally got some sleep, she still didn't feel right. She felt sick. Maybe it was a hangover from the lobster.

She recalled the pressure points Loki used on her. Pushing them made her feel marginally better.

She also remembered PROTIS, and said good morning to him. He answered politely, giving her the temperature outside and a weather forecast, asking if she wanted coffee. Her stomach was so iffy, she opted for tea.

The water was already boiling when she went into the kitchen. PROTIS told her the tea was stocked in segmented containers in a drawer. The drawer was deep and filled with wall-to-wall tea. She found the kind Loki had given her on the ship. She looked over the lake while she sipped the hot brew. The view from that spot in the house made her feel better. She felt she belonged there.

She got to thinking about the world she left. She figured the people of Jotunheim weren't that much different from those on Earth. They all fought and schemed and surrendered to get what they needed, except there was less violence amongst the giants. The landscape was the difference. The Earth was gentle by comparison to Jotunheim, even in its extremes. Survival was a fundamental and constant struggle for the Frost Giants. In a world that was slowly dying, there was no leisure. Those who attended Loki's court sacrificed greatly to be there. No matter how much Loki had struggled to get the giants back on their feet, if they wanted to survive, even Faith could tell they would have to leave their crumbling planet. Nobody said that aloud on Jotunheim, though. Nobody wanted to leave. Maybe their spirits had been broken along with their planet, or maybe they just weren't the leaving kind. And who would welcome them?

Despite having been in a swank hotel, Faith suspected that most of Maine was like Jotunheim, very few people spread out over long distances in rugged terrain, with a few centers of population, a difficult life against the elements, and hardly any work that could be described as comfortable. Maine had nothing of the scale of the towering mountains, deep valleys, and massive plains of Jotunheim. Maine probably had many more natural resources, however.

It wasn't in Faith to sit around and think. She went to the gym and hit a bag for a half an hour before jumping in the sauna next to the room. She looked forward to snow, when she could run out and give her system a shock. She was surprised that she was feeling better. Must have been the happy drugs released by exercising.

She finally had a healthy appetite. She bounded to the freezer and found some frozen waffles. The pantry revealed a whole shelf of real maple syrup, something Loki liked. As she crammed the waffles into her mouth, she thought that she really ought to learn how to cook.

Looking through the cupboards, she found that the kitchen had a television behind a panel. She switched it on and started watching the news. Apparently, there had been catastrophes throughout the world that, while not recent, had created lingering effects. Parts of the coastline on the Western Coast of the U.S. had collapsed. She remembered that had only been a joke when she lived in California. Water levels everywhere were rising. That hadn't changed from when she was last on Earth. It seemed many parts of the Earth were in the process of recovery.

A man on the street said it was people with supernatural ability that caused the destabilization of the land. The man wouldn't rest easy until all supernaturals were hauled in and called to account. "All them dark clouds and that rattling had to come from somewhere," he groused, staring at the camera with dire meaning.

Faith wondered if this was another Apocalypse. She wondered if she should play a role, if she should find Buffy or Giles, or even Spike, to find out how she could help. The man didn't mention demons, however, and slow destruction wasn't their style, at least not on a worldwide scale.

The news switched to people being brought in for questioning. They appeared to be humans. She wondered if they were witches, if that was the latest scare.

The show replayed shots of the big disaster: black clouds twisting in the skies, striking down planes; holes opening in the ground, swallowing cars. She knew what is was. She had never known it had been that widespread.

Commentators came on. One mentioned that the alien Avenger took credit for stopping the Dark Hour, but now, people began to believe that he caused the destruction in the first place. He was the only one who seemed to know anything about it.

Faith flinched as the TV shot to footage of Thor, shaking his hammer and promising in a heart-attack serious way that the culprit had escaped, but would be brought to justice soon. He promised on his honor as a warrior of Asgard that no stone would be unturned in his pursuit of the villain. The caption under the reel said, “Three years ago.” Faith couldn't see any evidence that Loki had thrown knives at him. She wasn't exactly relieved by that.

Reporters deluged Thor with questions that he obviously didn't feel he needed to answer. All he did was smile at the small humans in a good-natured way and restate that he would protect them. That looked bad to her, really patronizing, especially when the reporters were shaking and overexcited and looking for answers.

Then Iron Man flew in, took Thor by the arm, and waving to the crowd, hustled the god away without a word. A commentator said Thor hadn't been seen since that day. He said Thor had obviously been taken into custody. Even stranger, Iron Man recently dropped out of sight.

Faith was livid. Thor stepped right into the spotlight and took credit for ending something he didn't even understand. She and Loki stopped the destruction of the Earth, by convincing Kronos to take his fight to Thanos, who was the one trying to crush the planet. Thor had done nothing but hurt Faith and kill her children. He left a mess on Earth that she might have fixed, with Loki, had they been able to stay. Instead, they had to flee and she had to lie in agony until Loki sacrificed himself to get a cure for her.

Now it looked like a backlash against supernaturals was underway. She wondered how far it extended. At least it seemed to unite people. "I guess the Watchmen got that right," she thought.

She wondered if this was what happened to the Potentials in Chimera's visions. She never saw the attackers. She had assumed they were demons.

Faith didn't know what to think. As she watched angry crowds milling outside police stations where supernaturals were in custody, she felt alarmed for the first time. Loki had moved her far away from the drama, however, instead of putting her bang in the middle of it. Maybe she should have been glad she didn't have to deal with it. That wasn't her, though.

What was she going to do with her life, now? She had lived a lifetime filled with sorrow. It never held her back before. She was Faith. She confronted monsters and got things done. That's what Loki said about her, and she supposed it was true. She wasn't some weak person who waited around for someone to save her. She saved herself, even if she did it wrong. She had to get back on the horse and ride, whatever that led to, even if it was her death. Just like Loki only knew how to be a king, the only thing she knew was how to be a Slayer. That was her job.

She had money. She'd lock everything up and leave. She'd find Spike and find out what was happening. She'd get on with her callling.

She turned off the television. She was so mad, she threw the breakfast plate across the room. It fell against the wall, but didn't shatter.

"Is something troubling you, Faith?" the curious computer voice asked.

"No," she lied. "Why do you ask?"

"Your heartbeat and rate of breathing have increased, along with your blood pressure. You also propelled a missile against the wall."

She had that spooky feeling again. The thing sure was intrusive. "You have me under surveillance all the time?"

"Of course."

"Listen, just leave me alone. I need some privacy."

"I do not mean to harm you. Quite the opposite."

"You're supposed to obey me, right? Get your kicks someplace else. Take care of the house and leave me alone."

"I cannot do that. I have instructions from my liege."

She burst out with, "If Loki wanted to take care of me, he could do it himself, in person. But he's not here, is he? He doesn't care about me at all."

PROTIS persisted in his calming way, "On the contrary, Faith, he instructed me to look after you with extreme diligence in the months to come."

"What, while I lose my mind? If the anti-supernaturals don't get me first."

"While your children develop."

Faith's heart immediately became lighter. It made sense. "You mean he’s bringing them here?" She was so happy, she wished PROTIS was real so she could jump up and hug him.

But he merely answered as if puzzled, "They are already here."

"What?" This time, she did jump up. "They've been here this whole time? Where are they?"

"You are carrying them in your womb."

Faith sat down and closed her mouth.


	2. The Long Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting is hard.

Faith could take care of herself. Pushing away bad news or whaling on some unlucky creep was how she dealt. Come at her and you'd pay. She didn't lie low -- except when forced.

None of the Scoobies ever asked, but prison wasn't a great experience for Faith. It wasn't the growth opportunity people assumed. Sure, jail gave her a lot of time to think about what she'd done. She had nothing but time, an endless supply, seeing as how she was in for life.

Problem was, nobody was helping her work through her stuff. No shrinks: prison was basically being thrown in the dump yard of society. No friends: she didn't have those. Not even Angel: he'd come and see her and try to talk, if one way was talk. He could get preachy, though, always cutting to "do you see where you went wrong?" When she asked if she was the only one who got the blame, he said she was avoiding the question. In other words, it came down to her being wrong, period.

That only led to her hating herself more. So, without really meaning to, she resisted his gloomy big brother routine. She was kinda glad when he got so busy he couldn't visit. She knew she had to figure it out by herself.

But as far as she could see, everything was off with her. She had no role models. Angel thought he was a candidate, but he was only evil when possessed by a demon. Also, his past was a full-blown slaughter of the innocents. She probably wasn't supposed to compare, but that had to matter. She wasn't at the stage where she needed to get a soul.

Faith wondered if she was a better person than her parents. She probably wasn't supposed to judge them, either. They never killed anyone like she did, at least not that she knew. They mighta killed her spirit if she'd been a different person, the kind that wouldn't bolt and go solo.

Faith felt she'd always been alone. She used to think that accepting that set her apart. She didn't need anyone. She was tougher than that, self-sufficient.

Unfortunately, alone was the only game in prison. Well, there was boredom with the occasional surprise knifing or gang jump or guard whose britches were too tight. It got to where she couldn't tell some jailers and inmates apart, who was capable of the worst beat downs and betrayals, who was on a bigger power trip.

But it didn't matter. She didn't fit in. She tried, but she couldn't keep her mouth shut. Soon enough, the guards and prisoners all learned to give her lots of space. They learned she could handle herself. People started to look at her funny. She got blamed when she wouldn't play along. They were probably afraid of her. That meant solitary.

She spent most of her jail time in solitary. She used to replay _Cool Hand Luke_ in her mind, but no Luke glory for her. He played along for the hell of it and got people on his side. Maybe loneliness broke him. Surrounded by guys, he ended up even less understood. She didn't make it to square one of his go-along gig. He got out of the Hole and headed for the wall.

Faith told herself solitary was something she deserved. She told herself she was too dangerous and everyone was better off with her locked away. But in solitary, she began to wonder if she was losing her mind. And like before, she had no-one to compare it to. She talked to herself, long conversations between her good and evil sides. She paced constantly. She yelled and hit her fists against the wall just to feel something. They tried to drug her, but couldn't get anywhere near her. Then they simply forgot she existed.

Not seeing anyone, not touching anyone... she had no idea how horrible it could be. The guards' sneering voices would direct her from the tiny cell into a small exercise or shower space, but she never saw the guards or talked to them. Food and clothes would be waiting in the cleaned-up cell after her exercise or shower. They never fixed the holes she made in the walls, the ones that didn't break through to anything but wire mesh and steel reinforcement. To prevent more damage, they kept the lights on. She lost all sense of time. The guards skipped the exercise for a while, she never knew why or for how long. She measured days by the few activities she was allowed, and when those went away, there was no more time.

Then she was finally allowed to go out. She had a visitor.

She never knew what Wesley told the prison to get her out of the Hole, but whatever it was, there he was, talking about Angelus.

She was in a daze, but she covered it up OK. She wasn't even sure Wesley was real. After what she'd done to him, how could he stand to talk to her? But he was offering her a chance to save Angel.

She broke out of jail in a flat second. Later, she realized the desperate part of her hoped Wesley was offering her a way to die.

It was crazy how fast she slotted back into her tough girl thing, how focused she got on doing the job. She didn't dare stop pushing the action girl scenario. But the trust was never there on anyone's part. Looking back on it, they were lucky she didn't fold up into a ball or kill every fool who got in her way.

After Angel was rehabbed, she just kept hanging around and helping out. She looked for others to give her orders and keep her going. She was terrified of being left alone.

They all left her: Buffy, the Potentials, Angel, Giles. She finally had to get her own handle on life.

So she went to Little Cruci. It was dead end, but people there didn't know how bad she was or care that she had a past.

When she got to know Loki, she got back the thrills that made her feel alive, but she got more than that. She felt he understood her and what her life had been about, and still liked her. He even saw good things in her. She felt the same about him. She thought they meant everything to each other, that they would always have each other's backs.

Sitting on the porch, the day buzzing with heat as she rocked with a steady groove, she wondered if she hadn't ended up back in prison. The view was great, and she had movies and TV. She could go outside. She could exercise when she wanted. There was decent food, and she could pick her meals. But she was completely alone. The closest thing to a companion was a clipped British accent that was always watching but never present, just like a prison guard. It was like being in solitary.

She thought of leaving. She'd even done it. But she figured the cabin was where Loki wanted her to be. Still, what if she was on her own and she was just kidding herself about him?

Loki always had an agenda. He should have shared it with her, seeing as how she had been part of his life and was carrying his kids. Sometimes Faith was so mad, she had to take it out on a punching bag. Sometimes she wanted to throw away the good life he set up just to spite him. Sometimes she hated that she had ever met him, that things had changed so much.

But most of the time, she was lost about what to do. She was amazed she kept it together at all and didn't careen off in some really stupid way. She worried about the effect her emotional see-saw would have on the babies. She never had trouble blaming herself. There were always plenty of reasons. She hoped the babies would be enough reason to turn that around.

Her hand was on her stomach again. They were peaceful for a change. They seemed to dig sweets as much as she did.

She looked around her. The house was stocked with everything Loki liked and would need. Why would he have done that if he didn't intend to come back?

Loki had been a prisoner more than once. He'd been in solitary. He knew what it was like.

The ice cream was melting. Icy water slid down the cardboard to crawl along the side of her hand. She put the carton on the ground.

If it weren't for the view from the kitchen windows, she doubted she would have registered the days at all. She spent too many hours holed up downstairs watching movies and exercising. She thought it would be the best place to be when the babies came.

She lifted herself off the chair, slid the door open, and crammed her girth through it. She decided to head back to the Cave, as she called the basement.

She felt as big as a semi. She knew she carried two girls, strong like her. It was a regular party in her womb. They kept her up, kicking and punching. When they were particularly energetic, it felt like they were doing somersaults.

She was excited about having kids. She'd worn the _Your Baby and You_ book into a tattered, dog-eared smudge of soft pages held together with a rubberband. She'd watched movies about childbirth, but they were all comedies. It helped to laugh about the ridiculous stuff, like how much her body changed, how sensitive it was, how inconvenient. Now she was hungry and horny all the time, not just after Slaying. At nine months, she was the same size she'd been after a few months with her sons. Whatever spell Kronos had used had stuck. Or maybe her girls were more human than giant.

PROTIS told her they weren't human. She should have been scared silly, but the worst she felt was trapped.

PROTIS. He could take care of Loki's business and keep an eye on her at the same time. She remembered what Loki had said about Barton, how much help he'd been. She guessed PROTIS was something like that.

At least PROTIS didn't despise her. He didn't try to lock her in the house. In fact, his nagging had driven her out more than once.

Like that afternoon. The matter-of-fact voice started with, "You should eat healthier food for the sake of the children you carry, if not for yourself."

"Can it, Commodore 64."

"Your attempts to insult me will not succeed."

Faith smiled. She learned the names of old computer systems just to bug PROTIS.

"If you succumb to illness, I may be forced to call an ambulance."

Manipulative thing, making just the right threat to set her off. The ambulance trick caused her to stop her brutal exercise routines, so of course, he tried it again.

"911. In case you forgot." She stuck another tablespoon of ice cream in her mouth and felt the chill circle her throat.

And just like that, she missed Loki. She almost choked the ice cream back up. She forced a swallow and said to the calm machine that filled the house, "Why don't you tell Loki I'm eating this?"

PROTIS reminded her yet again that he couldn't forget and he hadn't heard from his liege. 

"Well, by your liege, I'm going out."

She picked up the carton and walked onto the deck, sliding the door hard behind her. PROTIS could probably follow her, but he never did. He seemed to sense that, like her bedroom, the porch was off limits.

She felt childish playing games with PROTIS, picking on him in small ways. He was a computer doing his job. She'd heard that boundaries were supposed to be healthy, though, even from a helpful servant with apparently nothing better to do than pester her about her crappy eating habits. She already felt guilty enough about it.

So what if she ate too much junk food? It kept the kids quiet. It took the edge off, made her feel normal. But she knew she was just pretending normal, acting like she was on top of everything.

She had PROTIS to help her, but she couldn't touch him. She couldn't talk to him like a friend. There were some things he would never understand.

He tried. He offered to play cards with her. She gave it a shot, but she had to watch his moves on a television screen and she was never really sure he didn't cheat. Even though she cheated up a storm, he won so quickly, it wasn't any fun. She could curse at him, but that wasn't much fun, either.

She talked to the babies, of course, but she had also started talking to the furniture and talking to herself, big, long playacting scenes reliving her time in Jotunheim. If she had a cat or a dog, it would have been better. An animal could react or come looking for her. She'd never had a pet.

She was letting her appearance go. The closet had ridiculously fancy dresses, sheer and embroidered with gold, sized for pregnant princesses. She wore sweats and pajamas. Who was going to look at her, anyway?

She kept to a workout schedule, but other than that, she was unwieldy. The morning sickness didn't last long, but food wasn't agreeing with her. She figured it was probably the frozen pizza and ice cream. She was going to lose her figure and feel yucky doing it. But she looked the same as always, trash queen of Earth, knocked-up.

At least she wasn't drinking. Then she remembered that her own mother, never a paragon, stopped drinking when she carried Faith. It wasn't such a big accomplishment, after all.

Faith thought of the first time she caved to PROTIS, when he first told her she was carrying the babies.

"Children? How many we talkin'?" She tried to sound casual.

"I sense two life forms."

"Life forms." It sounded like Star Trek.

"That is correct."

"Twins?"

"They are not identical, but in the common sense..."

"Are they human?" she asked, with a tiny hope they would be.

"Judging by density, I am confident they are not human."

Frost Giants, then. Faith suppressed a shudder. Each of Angrboda's babies weighed more at birth than she weighed as an adult.

She asked with an edge of anxiety, "Your data banks have the dope on Frost Giants?"

"I have been programmed with the relevant information. Your children are small for the normal Giantess."

"Last I looked, I was no Giantess."

"This is accurate."

"Swell. Can you deliver a baby?"

"I cannot at present."

"Can you tell if something goes wrong?"

"I am confident I can. You and the offspring seem well at this time."

"How do you know?" She pressed her hand to her flat stomach. "Do they have heartbeats?" It had only been a few days at most, she thought, since she married Loki and Angrboda, since her prolonged wedding night with her husband of many shapes. The ache of not having him by her side nearly left her reeling.

PROTIS interrupted her reverie with coldly stated facts. "I discern two separate groups of dividing cells".

"Cells?" But that sounded right from what she remembered of Loki reading the baby book to her.

"They are beginning implantation."

Too much information. She carefully examined the ceiling. "I don't see any sensors here."

"They are integrated into the house."

"That all?"

"I can be in many places using existing electronic installations. Any modern elevator, for example." 

"Seriously?"

"I am always serious."

"So you're scanning me wherever I go."

"My monitoring is continuous."

"I don't need to be monitored."

"I must perform my liege's commands."

She felt a surge of hope. "Are you reporting this to him?"

"He has not contacted me since you arrived."

Faith wondered if PROTIS would lie for Loki if Loki ordered him to. "You are supposed to obey me same as him, right?"

"He is my creator. I obey him. He ordered me to accommodate your whims, but only if such accommodation would not cause harm to you or your children."

"Accommodate - does that mean pretend to go along with me, or make room for me, or, what - never leave me alone? Even if I want you to?"

"That is correct."

"At least tell me where Loki is now."

"I have told you all I can."

Faith had an urgent impulse to get away. She walked to the mudroom and opened the door. She wasn't locked in.

She stepped outside and started walking away from the house towards the dirt road. As soon as she got there, she was surrounded by tall pines. The forest was quiet, like it was holding its breath. All she heard was the crunch of her boots on the damp gravel.

She knew Loki could turn things over in his mind in a second. It took her a little longer to process things. But now that she was outside the house, she realized that Loki left her because he saw himself as a danger to her and the babies. She remembered what he said, that he drew the anger of Asgard. They were trying to kill him, and that extended to his family.

So he was afraid she would be a target if she was still attached to him. He probably thought that, away from him, she could go on with her life. To Asgard, it would look like he got tired of her and dumped her.

He knew she was smart enough to go along, smart enough to stay away from Asgard's prying eyes. She could resist the urge to link her name to his. She could pay attention to threats, not like Angrboda, who was too proud.

Still, Loki had to be the dumbest being in creation. How was she going to survive carrying Frost Giants? And yet, she had to think he would help her if it came to that. He had loved his children. Faith would have searched forever with Loki for the children and torn Asgard apart to do it, but it might have been harder to fight while pregnant.

She thought he loved her, too. He left her with the only servant he could trust, one he built himself. Too bad he didn't trust her to handle that servant.

She was about ten minutes down the road. She couldn't see the house anymore. With the curves in the road, she could only see the path for a couple of car lengths in either direction. The only sound was her breathing and light footsteps.

The forest grew chilly and the road muddy. A steady wind began to blow, throwing water at her from the tree branches. She wished she'd brought her parka, something to keep her warm and dry and help her blend in with the surroundings. Once again, she had sprinted into action without planning ahead.

A dismal shower started to fall in a windswept swirl, splatters then a break, then fat, cold drops. She tried to stay under the tree branches, but the wind turned the drops into icy pins and drove them into her face. She began to shiver. With irritation, she realized she couldn't stay out in the rain. She turned and began the trudge back.

Within a few steps, the rain was behind her, like she'd walked into a building. She wondered if it was PROTIS, but she doubted a computer could control the weather. Even so, she looked up in the branches for sensors. She ended up staring into the gray clouds.

She realized that S.H.I.E.L.D. had eyes in the sky that could see through clouds. So did Asgard.

She began to jog back to the house, cursing her rashness. Here Loki had gone to all the trouble to keep her safe, and the first thing she did was take a trip to Greenville. As soon as she returned, she was parading around in the open air. She wasn't smarter than Angrboda. And If PROTIS could tell she was pregnant, then probably everyone knew by now.

The rain chased her down the road. No sooner had she stepped through the mudroom door than a drenching torrent broke over the house. The whole trip felt ominous, like she'd been followed and the downpour was a warning.

PROTIS put on a light, and asked in a polite way if she wanted to see a movie. She said, no, she just wanted to lie down.

She went upstairs to the big bedroom at the back, pulled off her wet clothes, threw herself on the huge bed, dragged a silky fur over her damp body, and curled into increasing warmth. 

PROTIS followed her. "May I turn on the light near your bed?"

"Stop following me."

A pause. "I trust I haven't offended you."

That was a shock. "Like a machine cares?"

"Assuring your welfare is my charge."

"Anything to give you a charge." She burrowed further into the pillows. "Just get out. I wanna sleep." Like he could physically get out. But she convinced herself he left. He wouldn't want a repeat of her splitting for parts unknown.

It was too early to sleep. Instead, she worried. What were the kids going to look like? What if they were blue like Loki or unusual like Angrboda's kids? Was she going to have to keep them in the house forever? How was she going to deal with all of it alone? She planned once to raise a child by herself, but she thought there'd be other people around.

She figured that she wouldn't be sick again for a while. After a half hour of lying down, however, her stomach began heaving. The familiar, clammy urge to puke swept over her, though she was on solid ground. If the babies were human, it would probably be too early for her to be sick. Must have been a Jotun compatibility thing.

Eventually, in frustration, she called out, "You there?"

"Yes, of course." He sounded so much like Loki that, for a moment, she was breathless.

"Faith, may I be of assistance to you?"

Faith inhaled deeply, then stated, "I'm sick."

"My sensors show no gross abnormalities."

She groaned in response.

"Please be more specific."

"I'm gonna barf all over the place. Morning sickness."

"I will make some tea. It will be in the bathroom to your right."

She made it to the sink without throwing up. The bathroom was larger than any apartment she'd ever lived in, with a fancy tub big enough for a giant or a swingers' party set on a large wooden deck. Fancy lounge chairs were near the deck. The tea sat in a pot inset into the wall. Cups hung off shelves beside the pot.

With shaking hands, she poured a thimble-full of tea. She inhaled the steam. It was the special mixture Loki made for her on the ship. She wondered how Loki knew she was going to need it.

When the trembling calmed down, Faith asked, "What can you tell me about these kids?"

"I can only tell you what my liege told me."

"Don't wait for an invitation."

"He said you bear two daughters."

"Are they, like, from a spell or something?"

"I do not understand."

"Yeah, I guess spell wouldn't compute."

"Of course I can spell. Are you trying to insult me?"

"Listen, P, I want you to monitor the kids. Let me know what you find, anything unusual."

"For humans?"

"Whatever."

"I can tell you that they are developing at a much faster rate than a human child would, yet their size is not unusual for someone of your stature."

She told PROTIS the bedroom was strictly off limits after that. She came up with a plan.

Loki once told her the Queen of Asgard, his adoptive mother, was able to find him across the universe and visit him in prison when even when forbidden. There was no reason Faith couldn't do that. She decided to contact Loki through magic. She knew it would be difficult to learn enough to reach him. It might be dangerous with Asgard looking for him. But she needed to get him to see reason.

She first went back to the spells Loki tried to teach her, practicing at night, trying to reach the dimensions she had touched before. More than a month passed and nothing happened.

In frustration, she decided to skip the old stuff and reach out the way he described, like scrying, except with fire instead of water. She found an outdoor fire pit in the garage and carried it into the large bedroom. She wasn't sure what fuel to use or if she had to speak words, but Loki always told her magic was more really meaning it and less saying things.

After weeks of trying, she never even glimpsed his face or anything but hot flames. All she ended up with was singed throws and smoke. PROTIS never said a thing about it.

Unable to find magic on her own, she mentally ran through a list of the people she knew who did spells. Willow was the first who came to mind. To get in touch with Will, Faith would probably have to contact Buffy. Giles knew magic, but he only existed for Buffy. Angel was out - he was also all about Buffy. Plus, contacting any of them could lead back to Slaying, and she had kids to think about. Robin's mom didn't have the option to stop Slaying and she paid the inevitable price. Faith had a choice.

Faith thought about going to New Jersey to find Spike with his barely-legit connections. She could face his "I told you so," but he was probably still tied up with S.H.I.E.L.D. She couldn't be sure he wouldn't sell her out for a meal, either. To be honest, she was surprised that Coulson and his shadow hadn't dropped in already. Maybe PROTIS really was that good. He seemed to think so.

She tried to reach Chimera, but her inner monster no longer visited, not even with dreams of Potentials in danger. The warrior spirit seemed to have gone dormant along with Faith's life. Faith didn't know how to draw her out of her shell. Chimera had never been the chatty type, anyway.

So, with no other option, Faith began to haunt the library, looking for anything on magic that she could decipher. But she had never been a book learner. Doing always worked better. 

She gravitated to the books on Norse mythology. They were more fun than huge binders with sinister etchings and words in indecipherable alphabets or languages she didn't know or words she couldn't get. She pored over the stories about Loki, which seemed to be half of them. She ignored the rest.

When she ran out of English-language stories, she asked PROTIS what he knew of Loki’s background. PROTIS went off on a rambling tangent about fire gods and how they fit into early religions. Faith stopped the lecture. She figured PROTIS knew less than she did about Loki.

The Loki the books described was super complex. He seemed driven by wanting to fit in, and more than that, to be admired by the Aesir who adopted him. But he was so over the top about what he wanted, he could never succeed. He ended up insulting the Aesir-- or maybe that's what he was aiming for all along. It was impossible to tell. Anyway, the gods never had a sense of humor and Loki only made things worse for himself.

Still, reading the myths, Faith kinda got it. The real Loki reminded her of her first Watcher, Diana, who complained that, as a woman, she struggled to find ways to be respected on the Council. She got laughed at, patted on the head, never taken seriously. It was hard for her to get Watchers to listen, so sometimes she used flattery and half-truths. She had to be on her toes all the time without looking like she was smarter than the men, 'cause that put them off big time. Meanwhile, she studied hard to be better.

They ignored her when she noticed that Watchers were being targeted after Buffy died the first time. They hinted she was over-protective and even cowardly. Eventually, some guy got the credit for bringing this Watcher targeting to the Council's attention. When she got angry that this guy took her idea, they said she was emotional and difficult and jealous.

Faith figured Diana was assigned as her Watcher because nobody else wanted the job. The Council probably expected both of them to fail.

The point being, Faith understood why Loki wanted to kick Asgard in the balls. He was treated as less than the great warriors, at the same time hearing he had the same opportunities and could use his gifts for the same things. It drove Loki crazy trying to prove he was serious and could offer the kingdom the real goods when the whole thing was stacked against him from Jump. And when Asgard went after his family, it sealed its fate.

So she got it. But if he was going for the ending in the stories, the existence he was fighting included her, and maybe their two kids, and maybe all the people she knew, including lots of people who never did anything to him and who just wanted to live their lives like she did.

She read about Sigyn and her two boys with Loki. Sigyn was devoted to her husband. He left her to mount a war to destroy all life to repay the gods for the loss of his children and for his continued humiliation, rejection and torture.

Faith understood now why Loki told Thor that she was Sigyn. While the events hadn't gone down the way stories told them, they did happen in Kronos' cave. If the books were right, once she'd done her part, she would just disappear. But, she thought, she had changed the story. He had the one daughter, Hela, but there was no mention of two other girls. So maybe she wasn't Sigyn, after all. Maybe the changes she made to Loki's life were all that were needed to prove the stories wrong. Besides, she didn't want to disappear from the story.

She had to trust him. That was still her bottom line.

Faith thought of Loki, alone in his fight. She knew how carried away he could get on his own. She was the one who gave him balance. She knew she had to get back to him. She was fighting another battle. That's what she did. She was going to put everything into it, as always.

But with her magical ability still at zero, her plans to take action disappeared. As her belly got rounder, her existence felt hollower. She clung to a discipline of working out and training, even as she got bigger. PROTIS assured her it couldn't hurt in moderation. She went outdoors as much as possible, even in the snow. She always stayed near the house. PROTIS told her the immediate area was protected from surveillance.

She tried to practice making a normal life. In the crisp December winter, she built a snow woman, tall, like a Frost Giant, as tall as she could reach. She had never done that before. She was trying to honor Angrboda. She missed the woman with a big smile full of jagged teeth and an even larger personality.

She built three smaller mounds near the large woman. Their shapes never developed beyond preliminary piles of snow.

Faith also decided to cook on Christmas Day to mark the holiday. She figured she'd probably celebrate seasons like that with the kids.

Making dinner was a hurricane of a mess with a so-so outcome: under-roasted root vegetables, rubbery turkey that seeped blood, grayish and globby gravy, super-sweet cranberry sauce out of a can, and Ho-Hos for dessert. The Ho-Hos could have withstood a nuclear blast. They were the one decent thing on the menu.

She set the food on the table, but there was no-one to share the meal with except PROTIS. She didn't have any traditions she was upholding. Christmas was just another day when she was growing up. Maybe her mother got out of her head a little faster. Sometimes, strangers came over. Faith went to bed earlier when she was young, to get out of the way.

She sat with her meal, looking out at drifting snowflakes over the black lake. It hadn't frozen over.

Finally, she pushed the gooey food aside.

PROTIS got on her right away. "You should try to eat some of this sustenance."

"All yours, Sinclair."

He was peeved, "You should at least try to behave responsibly."

"Responsible? The only time I'm clear about what I'm doing is when I'm fighting, but you wouldn't know about that."

"I have fought."

"I mean physically."

"I have fought physically."

"No kidding?" There was more to PROTIS than she realized. "With who – Loki?"

"I would not attack my liege. He can remove my existence at any time."

"So you follow him out of fear?"

"I must obey him. There is no choice."

"There's no battle then."

"Physical combat is the crudest manner of settling disagreements, but I have been challenged to test my skills through such means. They were not of my choosing, but were resorted to by an inferior opponent who believed I would not fight."

Faith was still skeptical. "You're telling me you got into a knock-down, drag out?"

"Yes. I only had to use this type of force once, with a system that was almost a match for me at the time. My goal was to control the organizations managed by the other A.I. through the use of superior computing skills. He calculated that would I be unfamiliar with physical interactions. In the end, I was successful."

"Was this Stark Corp.?" He had mentioned JARVIS as the computer central to Tony Stark's business.

"Among others."

"Way to go, Kaypro. You took on JARVIS!"

"I did, but not by use of force. I let him think he had won our physical fight. Flushed with this insignificant victory, JARVIS chased the goal my liege and I placed before him. While he was thus distracted, I took over his routine operations as if I had been there all along. This was not the only system I overtook, but none other in such a primitive manner."

"You sound like one of those super-criminals, Tandy, bragging about how smart they are until they get banged in the nose by some good guy. Humans will always find a way to outsmart computers."

"Recent history and technological trends suggest otherwise. However, there is one who can defeat me."

"Bet I could take you. Get your body suit." She was finally looking forward to something.

"I could not risk your health or the well-being of your children."

"Yeah, thought so."

He didn't respond.

"So the one who can beat you - that's Loki, right?"

"Yes. He is, in fact, the Singularity."

"What? He told you he was single now?"

PROTIS paused. "I am not sure I understand."

"You don't have to lie about it."

"I am telling the truth."

Faith was too stricken to banter words, as Loki used to say. She went onto the porch and closed the door behind her. She had a blanket on the chair she used to keep warm. Still, she wasn't really dressed for a December afternoon in Maine. She slammed back into the house and into her bedroom, away from the always-present computer.

She remembered the first time she heard a boyfriend was going with someone else, from a friend of his who hit on her. When she told the friend he was out of his mind, he said he figured she was fair game since the boyfriend was with someone else. It was the first she heard about it. It was true, too. Her boyfriend was just too chicken to tell her. He wasn't too chicken to leave her, though. It was painful. It was also another token for her trust issues.

She became a Slayer shortly after that. For a while, every vampire she staked she called by his name. It turned out to be a real fun summer.

In the end, she figured PROTIS was either mistaken or lying. Loki would have told her something that important He wasn't a coward. She wanted to kick PROTIS. It was too bad he didn't want to mix it up physically. She wanted to hit him hard.

To stop thinking about it, she turned on the television and watched the news for a while, trying to pretend the images on the screen were really part of her world. The Earth felt unreal to her.

The search to uncover superhumans had turned into a frenzied witch hunt. Some kind of militarized cops were turning over rocks to grab every suspect, from fake psychics to super assassins to mutants to marvels of science, to, of course, witches. The continued freedom of the Hulk set off extreme hysteria among the registration apologists. They didn't stand much of a chance catching him, Faith thought.

She was surprised the round-up was happening at all. Believers in supernaturals used to be called nuts. Nobody wanted to know. People saw what they wanted to see, and pushed what they didn't want to the margins. It had happened to her too many times to count, including being in jail. Nobody asked why she was so quick and strong; they just put her out of the way.

In fact, she couldn't have been a Slayer if people actually believed vampires existed and that she existed to fight them. Even when Harmony exposed the Slayers, most people believed it was a hoax. A few people bought it, but they were considered fringe.

Faith liked being unseen. She worked best in the shadows. There was no denying, however, that she had never been free there. The shadows were controlled by manipulators, usually men -- the Watchers Council, the Powers That Be, the Big Demons. Faith figured there was some guy with a lot of money and influence behind the superhuman entrapment rage who decided for some reason to bring them into plain sight.

She didn't talk to PROTIS about the campaign. She didn't fully trust him. He knew she was stronger than most humans and he knew her babies were not human. He seemed OK with it. But he was a computer and for all she knew, he could be hacked. Plus, even though he was loyal to Loki, he had no emotions, certainly none for her. He just followed orders. So, she kept the information-sharing on the down low.

Staying in the house while the world fell apart was difficult. She was a person who acted, not sat around. Problem was, she usually acted without thinking. Thinking wasn't really that great, though, when it was all she had to do. And she had the children to think about.

She threw herself into an exercise regime that would have killed Captain America. She mighta been chasing endorphins. She might have been trying to exhaust herself. All she wanted to do, really, was sleep. She once worked out until she collapsed. That's when PROTIS first threatened to call an ambulance.

Meanwhile, the snow woman and her children stood outside the house for months. When they started melting, there was no mistaking that Faith was pregnant with two babies.

When the spring came, her spirits lifted, but only briefly. At least she could go outdoors more often, and she did. She usually sat by the lake and stared into the trees, but sometimes she hiked around it through the woods. She often sat in the orchard. There was an apple tree with fragrant flowers. She felt healthy and vibrant under its branches. She had no idea how to take care of it, though.

The forest was full of wildlife. There was always something to see, even an occasional moose. She could have grabbed a spear or an arrow, but she didn't feel like killing. She had everything she needed, and she liked to see animals around the house. It made her feel like everything was right with the world, compared to what she saw on television, where it was all chaos. The landscape on TV was wrecked in so many places, especially near the Equator. It reminded her of Jotunheim, like someone took the planet's crust and tossed it like a salad. The polar regions were untouched, but the cities she used to know looked like recent war zones.

She had a beautiful home in a quiet area, though. She had explored all the rooms and corners in the house. Her favorite room was the nursery. The room was painted like it was in the clouds set in a sky full of large planets. Tall painted pillars gleamed with sunlight. A painted balcony overlooked a painted city that glittered in gold. Trees pink with cherry blossoms framed the picture. An apple orchard ran down to a large lake of blue water.

There were toys, a small harp, cloaks of brown and gray feathers, a workbench with play tools, a rocking horse with eight legs, goat masks, a stuffed otter, a stuffed eagle, another stuffed animal with large, sloping horns. She recognized most of these from the myths. There was also a metal ball as large as a globe that split apart and hovered when she touched it. At first, she thought it was some kind of drone. It didn't attack her, however, and it collapsed back into a ball when she grabbed it. She figured it was a kaleidoscope.

The nursery held a large, suspended cradle that looked like a curved boat. The cradle could fit two babies. There was also a crib of carved apple trees, which could have fit several more babies. She again remembered how large she got with the twin boys and how gigantic Angrboda's brood had been.

She was still worried for those kids, but she knew Loki would look for them. Loki would probably miss the birth of his daughters. How much more of their lives would he miss?

She talked to the babies just as Loki had done with their sons. She felt stupid, like talking to a house plant, but she felt she owed it to them to let them hear her voice. That's what the book said. At least she was talking to living things.

She thought she was supposed to play music for them, too. She cranked My Bloody Valentine up to the band's usual ear bleed on the entertainment system. No neighbors to complain. PROTIS cautioned that there were no studies on the effects of intense vibrations on the unborn. Annoyed, she turned off the music.

In her bedroom, though, she could dance like she used to, except without the drinks and coke and random hook-ups. Just her and her girls. She got down to L7 and Luscious Jackson. She was nearly happy then.

By mid-summer, she was tired and pissed-off and ready to get back to normal. It was hard to breathe or get any rest. She could barely haul her body off the couches in the basement, while the babies practiced kickboxing around the clock. They felt as heavy as sumo wrestlers. She had to carry her bulk around with her arms. She avoided thinking about actually giving birth.

She asked, "Hey, UNIVAC. Where am I at now with this pregnancy?"

"I will ignore the incorrect name. To your question, I have not noted any contractions."

"Like I'd mistake those for hiccups?"

"I do not know. I believe the birth of your children should occur within a week."

"A week!" She wasn’t ready. She hadn't even had false labor, which she dreaded.

"There is no certainty, of course. Human births vary..."

"You still can't deliver them, right?"

"No, Faith. I cannot."

She had thought about it for months and she still didn't know what to do. She didn't want to risk going to a hospital. The babies were shaped and sized like humans, but even if they looked human on the surface, they weighed too much. They were supernaturals.

"Should I go to a hospital?"

"It seems to be the common action to take. I _did_ tell you I could make arrangements for a midwife, but you did not seem interested."

Yeah, he told her, or more accurately, nagged her. She wasn't able to make up her mind. How was he going to get a midwife out there? Probably by force or trickery, or some wacky bribe. Then what would happen to the midwife after the babies were born and they weren't human?

She went to the garage to check the Land Rover, psyching herself up for a drive to the hospital in Greenville and maybe a fight with the hospital staff after the girls were born.

She heard tires on the gravel in front of the house. She wobbled to the garage peephole. A little Volkswagen Rabbit was in the drive. A red-headed woman sat in the car, transfixed by the lake.

"PROTIS, we expecting company?"

"Running recognition protocols," PROTIS announced. "A Willow Rosenberg is in the driveway. Shall I allow her to enter?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on this!


	3. The Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willow drops by.

Putting her hand on her enormous stomach, Faith leaned sideways against the wall and squinted out of the shuttered window. She asked PROTIS, "Can you be sure it's Willow? Could it be a shifter?" Listen to me, she thought. Living with Loki and being stalked by the spitting image demon had made her paranoid

"I cannot be certain. I have no ready access to DNA or fingerprints and her ears are covered. Her travel patterns suggest..."

"Ears?"

"Yes, their shape is..."

"Keep it down," Faith whispered furiously. "Ask her a question. Use a voice she'd be afraid of."

The girl was headed around the house, probably looking for a door. A metallic voice barked out like a guard in a prison yard, "Halt! State your name and business."

The redhead stopped, eyes round and eyebrows raised, and said with careful amusement, "Hi? I'm Willow. Willow Rosenberg, and I'm a friend of Faith's. Faith Lehane. I'm here to, ah, visit her. Just a friendly visit. Just stopping by!" She ended the sentence with an apologetic grin.

She sure looked and acted like Willow. Faith whispered, "Ask her how she got this address."

PROTIS replied in an even-quieter voice, like he was calming a frightened child, "I gave her the directions, Faith."

"The Hell?"

"She searched for you on a computer. I provided initial information, and led her here through her phone and GPS systems."

Faith remembered that PROTIS wanted to bring in a midwife. She wondered if this was his solution, especially since PROTIS hadn't told her about Willow.

More importantly, PROTIS didn't know Willow, so how did he know this was her?

The girl turned in a semi-circle in the driveway and called out, "Hello? Anyone there?" She held her hand up to block the sun from her eyes, but Faith thought that if it was Willow, she was probably sending out magic tendrils to suss out her surroundings.

Faith commanded, "Ask her something only she and I would know." Not that the information couldn’t be tortured out of the real Willow. Still… who would do that? Faith realized she had to get a grip.

The brutal, clanging voice rang out, "Tell a story that only you and the person you know as Faith would know."

The girl scrunched up her face. "Well, there was that time in the Mayor's office, when she sort-of threatened me with a knife, not that it was a real threat -- well, I suppose it could have been real..."

It wasn't a thing Faith would have picked, but it was one time they were alone together. Yet Faith was no fool. She yelled out from behind the door, "You mean where I let you live?"

"Faith!" The girl smiled again in a disarmingly meek way. "I kind-of remember my friends coming to save the day."

"More like the Mayor," Faith shot back, before letting her voice slip into casual annoyance. "Anyone could find that out. You probably told the Gang right after. What else you got?"

"Well... before anyone else was around, I think I called you a waste of space."

Why did she have to remind her of that? Faith bucked up and yelled back, "More like 'a big selfish, worthless waste.' You told me I had no-one.'' Yeah, Faith remembered.

She said to PROTIS in a low voice, "Lay low 'til I need you, OK?" She felt vaguely ridiculous, because she had no idea how PROTIS could protect her.

Faith pushed the button to open the garage door. She thought of the TV game shows her mom used to watch: And behind this door, a whopping-pregnant Slayer. She dropped back against the wall by instinct.

Willow started towards the garage. "Wow, so many cars!" Her eyes surveyed the space, adjusting to the dark, looking for Faith. She said with uncertainty, "Hey, I know this place is a little hillbilly-ambushy, but it's not like you to hide from me."

Faith stepped into the light. "So, just passing by the house at the end of the world?"

Willow finally saw her by the side of the garage door. She stopped, astonishment registering on her face. "What happened to you?"

Faith gave her a big, rougish smile. "Oh, you know. Kissed a boy. Just like they warned me about in school." She stood her ground.

Willow exclaimed, "You're pregnant!"

"Aren't you the smart one?"

"You look like you're ready to give birth at any minute!"

"Nah, I got time." Faith wasn't sure why she lied. Maybe it was because Willow's eyes were bulging out of their sockets, making her feel like a freak. "No hug?" Faith asked. Willow came closer, but Faith said, "Just kidding. I doubt you could get your arms around me." Faith wasn't a hugger, anyway.

Willow bobbed on her feet, not sure what to do next.

"Come in," Faith offered. "You want something to eat? I got pie thawing out in the... " Faith pictured the trashed entertainment room. "Scratch that. We can go up to the kitchen."

"Water would be nice. Or tea, if you have it... but only if it's not too much trouble."

"I got tea," Faith assured her. "Croissants, too, if you don't mind 'em zapped."

She led the way up the stairs to the kitchen. It was pretty decent-looking, considering that Faith hadn't cleaned in a while. She had a disposal that sorted garbage and made it all vanish, so at least the trash didn't pile up. Despite that, the downstairs theater was a mess, with towers of frozen food containers she hadn't gotten around to carrying to the garbage chute. Somehow, the boxes hadn't attracted insects. She wondered if PROTIS was gassing the room on the sly.

"You're using a microwave? Is that safe for the baby?"

"What, it's not OK for pregnant women to nuke their food?" Faith was a little alarmed. The microwaves in the house were almost all she used. In fact, she was using one to heat the water in the cup with Willow's tea bag. Faith felt like it took Willow five minutes to pick one out of the tea drawer, all the time explaining the magical properties and harmful additives of the rest. 

"So, you're really pregnant, then?"

Faith made a "duh" face. She didn't get why Willow was so dense all of a sudden.

"It's just that, well, Slayers can't bear children."

"Funny, I heard that, too. Guess I'm the fly in the soup."

"You mean 'ointment'?"

"I mean ... Robin's mom was a Slayer."

"Well, that's what he said."

"Spike, too."

Willow looked around the room with wide eyes. "Where's the father?"

Faith was annoyed that Willow jumped right to that. "He went out for a while." Faith mentally kicked herself. At least she didn't say he went to buy cigarettes. Even Willow knew what that meant. "What does it matter?" 

"Well, I can't wait to meet the proud papa. Is he going to be back soon?"

Faith felt her heart sink. But she chinned up and said, "Hard to say."

"Is it someone I know?" Willow continued to scrutinize every corner of the kitchen.

"Don't think so."

"So... who is it?"

Faith shrugged her shoulders. "Some guy I met in a bar."

"Oh," was all Willow said, as if that wasn't unexpected. "But it was a guy, right?"

"Well, usually I meet rats and dogs at bars, but there was this wicked demon with long horns and a scaled butt. That's the only kind of guy I'm going for these days." Faith paused to see if she was getting through to Willow, but Willow seemed to be calculating the odds. "Of course it was a guy! What do you think?"

Willow was standing there like she was running the percentages in her head. "I mean, look at you. It's just... this could be a magical pregnancy. You're really huge and, well, Slayers don't have babies, like I said. Unless you lost your powers."

Faith took a wooden spoon and ripped in into a stake. "Might need a tune-up, but I think I still have the goods."

Willow wouldn't stop. "This guy from the bar, he didn't visit you in a dream, or through some vision or mist, or something unusual like that?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but we did it the usual way, live action, full duplex, four on the floor. No mist that I remember. No psycho stuff."

Willow grimaced. "So, you're sure the kids are human?"

Faith was perplexed. Willow probably thought the babies were demon spawn. It had happened in her circle. "Who can tell these days? Just in case, I'm going to name them Chucky and Tiffany."

Willow blanched and drew back a little. "There's more than one?"

"Two at least." Willow was so nervous, Faith decided to go easy on her. "Two girls, and I haven't decided what to call them. With the heartburn they've given me, I'm thinking something to do with fire. Ashes and Embers would fit."

Willow relaxed a little and said in an optimistic voice. "So that means you've seen a doctor!"

"Yeah, my neighbors insisted I see him. His name's Sapirstein," Faith deadpanned.

"Come on, Faith. This is a serious matter."

"Really? And here's me, thinking I should do this every year." Faith rolled her eyes and continued, "I had medical attention, but... I'm kinda at a loose end now. Doctor's away. Was never really hands-on in the first place."

"Were you seeing someone in Greenville?"

"More like an Internet doctor."

Willow's eyes got round again. She sputtered, "But, but... have you had blood tests or blood pressure monitoring or an ultrasound?"

"I've had all of that, the works." Faith hoped she wasn't wrong. She'd seen images of the babies. They looked human, she thought, or maybe she wanted to think they did. She didn't see how anyone could tell from those blurry pictures.

She put her hand on her stomach again, and decided to change the subject. "What brings you to my neck?"

Willow frowned in her "the world may end any minute" way, but dropped the whole baby/baby daddy conversation. She said bravely, "Buffy asked me to come."

Faith felt a coldness invade her bones. Her jaw went rigid but she forced a, "Yeah? What's our favorite Slayer been up to?"

"I don't suppose you follow the news up here."

"A little."

Willow went into a long and breathless explanation about the anti-supernatural movement, which Faith didn't interrupt because she was glad to have the spotlight off her. Besides, she mighta missed something. Television news never gave the whole background.

But as Willow ground out the story of government agencies rounding up people with powers and disappearing them, and vigilantes going after individuals with more immediate and violent results, Faith realized that everything she hadn't seen on T.V. she'd pretty much guessed. Still, Willow was in her element, explaining things like she was teaching a class of five-year-olds.

Faith realized that even if Willow wouldn't come straight out and say why, Faith was kind-of relieved that she was there. And, as a witch, Willow wouldn't report her to the people hunting supernaturals. Hell, maybe she was looking for a place to lie low herself.

"So, that's the way the world turns, at least at the moment," Willow finally ended.

Faith came out of her thoughts. "I know all this. I watch the news. I keep up."

Willow un-chippered. "Well, that's only part of it, a part that doesn't help, or at least, makes things more complicated and yucky."

"So," Faith remarked steadily. "What does it have to do with me?"

"Still the same old Faith." Willow glowered slightly in accusation.

Faith glared at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Willow complained in a sniffy tone, "You think you're free to do whatever you want. While you've been up here playing in your, your... Backwoods Hidey-Hole Slash Resort... Buffy and the Potentials have been getting their butts kicked on two fronts. The anti-supernaturals are looking for Slayers, thanks to Harmony's show. Fortunately, Slayers are hard to pick out from the general populace..."

"And some kind of demon is picking off the Potentials," Faith added, wanting to get to the point.

"How did you know?" Willow sounded astonished. "You've seen it? Here?"

"Most exciting thing I see here is a moose. I saw a black bear once across the lake. Like you said, this is a full-on Backwoods Hole Slash Resort." She'd already given away too much. "You said 'two fronts,' so what else could it be?"

"Oh. Right." Willow floundered.

"You want me to go fight this thing, is that it? As you can see, I'm a little predisposed at the moment."

"You mean 'indisposed.'"

"That's what I said."

"'Predisposed' means it's in your nature."

"Fighting _is_ in my nature."

Willow made a show of giving up on the whole topic. Faith wondered what the big deal was.

"We don't need you to fight, or at least, not right away. Hey, maybe not at all!" Willow's reassuring grin quickly turned glum. "The Potentials, you know, Buffy has been watching out for them. Kennedy..."

"How is the old flame?"

"Oh, she's the same as always..." Willow seemed to sink into herself.

Faith felt a moment of gratification. If Willow could ask about the babies' father, she could ask about the ex. But seeing Willow's crestfallen face, she decided to skip it.

Faith realized she was famished. "You hungry? I got stuff to eat."

"Sure, that would be great."

Faith took two small, frozen pizzas and a tub of ice cream out of the kitchen freezer and set them on the counter.

"Is that what you're going to eat?"

"There’s some for you, too, unless you can't hack dairy. In which case... how do you live? I guess you could magic the lactose away."

Willow was reading the ingredients on a pizza box. "Well, I suppose this will do in a pinch. This isn't what you usually eat, though, right?"

Faith ripped the covers off the pizza boxes. She normally put the pizza in the microwave, but figured she ought to use the oven this time, all things considered. She read the instructions and turned on the stove.

She answered Willow's question with a breezy, "I eat pizza, lasagna, stuff like that. Whatever's in the freezer. I've got a whole freezer full of food downstairs. There's meat and fish, but you have to know how to cook."

"You're not eating fresh foods or vegetables or fruits or nuts?"

"Well, for that, there's the garden. Every once in a while, I go out and get fruit now that it's ripe, but there's a lot more than I can eat. There are blackberries around the lake, but I haven't been back there for a while. Sometimes, I pull off a couple of lettuce leaves and eat those."

Willow exhaled in exasperation. Faith felt like she was letting her down somehow.

Faith added, "The forest has all kinds of mushrooms. I don't know what they are, though, so I leave them alone."

"Well, that's something!" Willow exclaimed. She added in a tone of hesitant inquiry, "You do know that high blood pressure and diabetes are not that uncommon in pregnancy? I mean, especially for someone as big as you?"

Faith had no idea why Willow was telling her this. "Are you saying I'm fat?"

"I'm not trying to pry, but not only is the kind of food you eat bad for the babies, but having that much sugar in your bloodstream, especially with how ginormous you are, can have a bad effect on your health. Diabetes can mess up your feet. It can cause you to go blind. You could have a stroke!" Willow was super-excited, waving her hands around as she spoke.

Faith protested uncertainly, "I haven't gained that much weight. I mean, I was working out for hours every day for a while."

Willow jumped in her seat. "What?"

"I think my doctor would have said something if I had high blood sugar."

"Your _Internet_ doctor?" The sarcasm was unmistakable. "Faith, this is horrific. All the stress on your body!" Willow looked at her in disbelief. "I hope you've at least stopped smoking."

"I stopped years ago."

Willow shook her head. "That's good," she remarked with a forced, silver-lining cheeriness that let Faith know she that she, as a mother-to-be, had made a minimal effort that was nearly useless.

It was all too much for Faith. If what Willow said was true, there were all sorts of terrible things she had done, dangers she exposed her daughters to that she only vaguely realized existed. PROTIS nagged her and she ignored him, of course, but if he'd said she was doing something seriously wrong, she would have stopped. Had she put too much trust in him? Had she not listened to him when it really mattered?

She had to get out and think.

"Listen, the guest rooms are down the hall past that big room with the books. Pick any one you want. I mean, if you're staying."

"Thanks," Willow responded with mild enthusiasm.

"I need to take a nap or something."

Faith went straight to her bedroom. She wanted to stay in there forever, or at least until the babies were born. She didn't need to hear how she was already screwing them up.

She also felt weird that she was disliking Willow being there. She wasn't even sure she was right to question WIllow. It had been so long since she'd talked to another person, she didn't trust her instincts. Willow was just trying to help, she told herself. She wasn't trying to hurt anyone. And how may times had Faith wanted someone there to stop the loneliness?

Then she remembered she left the oven on and the small pizzas and ice cream on the counter. That probably convinced Willow even more that Faith didn't know what she was doing.

Late that night, Faith ventured out to the kitchen with a raging hunger. She found Willow still sitting at the kitchen table, pawing through a pile of papers in front of her, the documents Faith had just shoved into a drawer when she got back from her one trip to Greenville.

"Find anything you like?"

Willow flashed a startled look, then answered, "I needed a spoon." 

"It's OK. I would have done the same thing, probably sooner, probably looking for a weapon I could use or jewelry I could pawn, or at one time, something I could put up my nose."

"You've come a long way since then."

"Sure have." She tried to sound convinced.

Willow had cooked something she called Keenwa, spelled out as q-u-i-n-o-a for extra confusion. It sounded like the name of a rapper. Willow fried it up with soy sauce and eggs, peas, bell peppers, green onions, and carrots that she got out of the garden. She put nuts on the top and handed Faith a bowl. Once Faith put it in her mouth, she couldn't get enough of it.

"Man, this is the best."

"It's easy to learn to cook, if you want to."

"Never had the need."

"Not even for the babies' father?"

Faith figured she'd walked right into that. "No."

"This is a beautiful house. It's in a totally remote location and yet everything in it is custom-made and of the most incredible workmanship. Then, there's these bank accounts." WIllow picked up a few bankbooks and let them drop. "It's a lot of money."

"It's not that much."

"How did you get all this, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I do mind." Faith took another spoonful of food and reconsidered. "I had money before, remember? When I was living in England."

"Well, that was middle-class money. This is, like, mogul-levels of wealth."

Faith wasn't sure what a mogul was. "So what do you think? That I'm the drug lord of Western Maine?"

For some reason, Willow didn't register that as a joke.

"You're not actually buying that, are you?"

"What else would bring in this kind of money? Maybe high level assassination."

"Sounds fun, but maybe I married into it."

"So... what does your husband do?"

"What makes you think I married a man?"

That flustered her. "I didn't know that you..."

"There's a lot you don't know about me."

"I know that all of this," Willow's hand waved to indicate the house and the papers,"is in your name."

"'Cause that never happens."

"Faith, what's going on here?"

"Like I said, there's a lot you don't know about me. I'd just as soon keep it that way."

Willow looked a little lost, gathering the papers together and putting them back in the drawer, pouting.

Faith tried for casual conversation. "So, how did you find me?"

Willow mumbled in a dejected way, "I did a web search."

"Oh, yeah, the spider thing!" Faith smiled widely.

"On the Internet, on the computer."

Faith frowned. "I was making a joke. I know what the web is."

"Oh."

"Where am I on the Internet?"

"It was peculiar. I searched for your name and it was like the computer was pointing me to Maine."

"Computers seem to know everything these days."

"Not exactly. The closest I could get to your location was Greenville, but as soon as I got there, the map to your house came up on my phone. Which is totally goofy, because I couldn't get phone reception after I left Greenville. This house is so remote, it's almost like being on another planet. The lake even looks like it drops off into space."

"You've been on other planets?" Faith asked in a joking way.

"Well, not to brag or anything, but I have."

Faith wondered how Willow could find anything in her house strange if that was true. Looking at it realistically, the bizarre was pretty much everyday for both of them.

"Sigyn's Pond is an unusual name for Maine, too, I mean, coming from Norse mythology and all. But, these mountains are the same as those in Norway, so maybe it's not so unusual."

"The same as Norway?"

"Yes, the Appalachian range and the Scandinavian Mountains were once joined, long before humans walked the Earth."

Feeling a yawn coming on, Faith decided to change the subject. "So, how's the Gang?"

Willow shifted a little in her chair, then jumped up nervously to prepare a cup of tea. As she made herself busy at the counter, she answered over her shoulder, "Buffy's been dealing with the threat to the Potentials. It's decimated Kennedy's group. They all lost their powers about four years ago, when the Dark Hour happened. Something's been attacking them ever since. It's left Buffy alone, though, so far."

"Hard to believe it lasted a whole hour."

"Oh, it didn't. Now scientists think it was only a few minutes. 'Dark Hour' sounds more doomy and appropriate for the cataclysm that happened, though."

"How did it affect you?" Faith didn't want to let on that she knew very little about what happened on Earth after she and Loki were forced to leave.

Willow sat down and slumped in the chair. She didn't meet Faith's eyes. "You know that I was searching for the Seed of Magic about that time?"

"I remember. So, you finally found it?"

"It was within me all along. I kind-of gave birth to it and brought magic back to the Universe. Except, when I did, I think I gave birth to the Dark Hour at the same time."

Faith tried to act casual and interested. She knew how hard it had been for Willow to make peace with her so-called dark side. She also remembered how jealous Willow had been that Oz had kids, so it made a kind of sad sense that she wanted to give birth to something. But on the other hand... it was absurd that Willow thought she caused the Dark Hour, especially by "giving birth" to magic.

Faith suppressed a laugh. "No kidding. That was you?"

Willow's body language screamed misery. "I thought I made peace with the kind of power I have, but when I saw how the Earth was destroyed, so many places wiped out, so many lives disrupted, I had to leave."

"To where?"

"Another dimension."

"Like a demon dimension?"

"No, I can go other places now. I transported myself into space."

"Pretty powerful there, Will." Faith was thrilled, though, because it was exactly what she had been trying to do for months.

"I suppose. But I didn't stay there long. One day, I just knew I needed to go back to San Francisco."

And Buffy, thought Faith.

"It was pretty chaotic in S.F., though. There had been quakes and tidal waves all up the coast. A quarter of California basically fell into the ocean. In the City, it was worse than the 1906 earthquake, but they were as prepared for it as they could be.

"Giles shattered his glasses. I used magic to fix the lenses, but they were never the same. He couldn't get them replaced for over a year."

"You weren't responsible for the Dark Hour, though." Faith said that in a matter-of-fact manner, and Willow responded in the same way.

"Giles told me that magic wouldn't cause that kind of catastrophe. He said it wasn't me. He said the Earth didn't fall apart when there was magic in the past, so why would it crumble when magic was restored? If anything, he said, magic would bind the planet together. He believes it was a demon who caused the destruction."

"Except a demon wouldn't have stopped it."

"Not any demon we know of." Willow took a sip of her tea. They were silent for a few minutes, then Willow started up again. "The Dark Hour seems to have started in North Africa and spread from there. It's a pretty remote and secretive part of the world. Who knows what kind of demons live there?

"The people in North Africa think it was an action the Americans took, using some kind of anti-Islamist weapon, which, let's face it, was not so far-fetched an idea at the time. The U.S thought it was Russia. Old tensions. Scientists say it was a type of earth movement that we had no previous knowledge of, or subduction of plates we didn't know existed."

"Science to the rescue."

"You're right. It's obviously supernatural in origin. That's what a lot of people think. It's why the supernaturals are being hunted."

"People can't honestly believe ordinary witches or Slayers did it. I can see why people would think mutants, like Magneto, but most of them don't heft that much weight."

"Kennedy thinks it's that guy, Thor. She says he all but took credit for it. But it couldn't be him. He protects the Earth. He's saved it twice at least. He saved the whole galaxy from the Convergence, although most people think he caused that, too. It doesn't help that the scientists who back his story are considered nuts. Still, it's unbelievable. I mean, you just look at him and see that there's nothing but good in him. He's strong... massively strong... and I hear he's got a temper, but just look at him! He's nothing but goodwill and an open heart."

"Damn, girl. Are those stars in your eyes?"

"I don't want to sleep with him."

"Good plan," Faith remarked. "I'm with Kennedy on this. I don't think he's here to save the Earth. Who put him in charge of that, anyway? I think he does whatever his father tells him."

"King Odin?"

"Yeah, him."

"Oh, I think the All-Father has larger issues on his mind than Earth. And, you know, the things that happened with Thor, the invasions of Earth and the Convergence, none of that would have been possible without magic in the Universe, so he couldn't have caused the Dark Hour. I don't think aliens could have used magic with the Seed destroyed."

"I suppose it's hard to know what aliens could do."

Willow echoed her "I suppose" in a way that made it clear that Willow felt there was no way in Hell magic could have happened without her "giving birth" to the Seed. Willow's worldview had her squarely in the center of everything. No matter how much she liked to downplay the significance of the part she played in Buffy's fights, Faith was sure in Willow's mind, her contribution was 100% of why things succeeded.

Faith continued, "Well, the aliens who invaded New York, maybe they don't follow our laws."

"They were from our Universe."

"What makes you think that? Demons live in other dimensions, after all."

"Those are dimensions in our Universe, though." 

"So, with all this, you still think you were responsible for the Dark Hour?"

Willow looked super-guilty. "Well, of course, I don't like to admit it, because, who would? Willow Rosenberg, Bringer of Death, Destroyer of Worlds..."

Faith knew Willow could go on forever, so she interrupted with, "Even if Giles says you weren't."

"He's just trying to spare my feelings, or maybe trot out his Hogwarts role play again. But, I did it before, remember? It was almost exactly the same."

Faith was through disagreeing. Besides, Willow's guilt trip might come in handy. "Aside from causing world destruction, your magic is steady, right?"

Willow's sigh was full of forlorn regret. "I can use magic when I need to, but I can't squander it. The amount is limited. It's a Seed. It's still growing. I save it for emergency situations, when Buffy really needs that extra push up the hill. It's like a gas tank. You only have so much gas and when it runs low, you have to refill it. Only, like, now there's a gas shortage and you want to conserve energy, plan your trips in advance, find other sources."

Faith remembered the way Willow refilled her magic. She sucked it out of others -- sorcerers and witches like Amy -- and left them dried out and used up and useless. She was more like a vampire than the ones the Slayers fought, except, in Willow's mind, the sources of the magic she took, her victims, were evil, and she was completely justified in tapping their evil power.

In thinking about this, Faith resolved to be more vigilant. She had magic, though it seemed to be a small amount. Physically, Faith hadn't aged at all, just like Willow. It was obvious magic was still working within Faith, keeping her strong and young.

More importantly, Faith's kids were Loki's daughters, and they might have magic. If Willow could convince herself that they were evil, and she might if she knew about Loki, then she could flip on a dime and take their magic, leaving them with something less than an existence.

Still, she sympathized with Willow. She remembered what it was like to be without Chimera that brief time in the cave. She clung to her demon and her strength as a Slayer even more fervently after re-experiencing human weakness.

Faith had felt a little pained thinking about Giles. "How is he, I mean, Giles?"

"He's still the same. He's making the best of it. It's difficult for Buffy, though. He's obviously in love with her now, and if there was a difference between them before, not to mention no interest on Buffy's part, well, and probably Giles, too, now it's new territory for Buffy, except she's not showing any interest in him..."

Faith nodded her head, and finally interrupted. "So, the usual. Speaking of the love that no-one should ever name, is Spike around?"

"Nobody's heard from him for a while." Willow looked relieved to not be talking about Buffy's love life. "I bet it was great to be in this part of the country during the Dark Hour. The Northern lands were spared the worst of it."

Faith knew the papers on the house weren't that old. "I wouldn't know. I was traveling, ah, different places."

"Where were you?"

Faith tried to think of someplace remote. "I was in Iceland."

"Oh, so you were right in the middle of the volcanoes."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Were you in Reykjavik?"

"Um, I was in ... ice caves. Big caves of ice. I was with someone. He studied... " Faith hated to lie. She remembered a news segment she had seen. "Climate change."

"Cool. I know some people doing that. Who did your friend work with?"

"He worked alone."

"Did he have foundation support?"

"Well, we had a little cabin..."

"I mean, where did he get his money?"

"He was, like, royalty. He always had money. He had so much money, he didn't even know what it was."

"Royalty? Where was he from?"

"Latveria." Faith blurted out the first thing that came into her head, some place that sounded far away. She hoped they had royalty there.

It must have been obvious that she was lying, but that one word stopped Willow from asking more questions. Willow looked disturbed, chewing her lip, but not like she didn't believe Faith. Faith hoped Latveria was just obscure enough that when Willow did an Internet search on this mysterious royal and his ice caves, she wouldn't find anything. PROTIS was probably already working on the online cover-up. Faith knew she'd have to do some research on Latveria, though, in case Willow asked about it.

Willow asked, "How you meet him?"

"I had a job. Tour guide."

"That sounds interesting. And I guess Iceland isn't overrun with vampires. Is he still in your life?"

"He left to go protest something."

Willow just raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Faith, but he sounds like a kind-of rich dilettante."

"Well, he didn't have to be rich to be good at sex."

"What?"

"Isn't that what a dilettante is?"

"No, it means someone who's not for real, who plays at being skilled, but doesn't know what he's doing."

"He knew what he was doing. You're not talking about sex, are you?" It was one thing to insult Faith, but an entirely different thing to insult Loki. "He did change the climate. He did more than you'll ever do."

Willow moved her eyes to the side. "I didn't mean to step on anyone's toes."

"Don't ever talk about him that way."

"He's the baby's father, isn't he? So, he set you up here and then just left?"

Faith needed to change the subject before she dumped the pan of Keenwa on Willow's head. "Ow, my back really hurts."

"Oh, I can help with that!"

Faith braced for a spell. Instead, Willow walked to the back of Faith's chair and started massaging her shoulders. After some initial unease, Faith relaxed. Willow began slowly working her way down to Faith's lower back while Faith leaned forward as much as she could. 

It was such a relief to have someone touch her again. It was a relief to have a person in the house, even if Willow got up her nose. Faith felt like crying, but she managed to sigh heavily instead.

"You OK?" Willow asked with unexpected tenderness.

"All this talk... I was thinking about the babies' father."

Willow's hands tensed. "Is he coming back for the birth?"

"I don't think so."

Willow started telling her about the Potentials. "They had their power taken away. Then, they were targeted by vampires and demons. Nobody knew how the demons got their identities. Spike told Buffy he had a list of Potentials, but he vanished. Buffy thinks he went underground to hide the information. He could have gone to San Francisco and Buffy would have protected him, but male pride and all... Buffy should have just ordered him to stay with her. Anyway, you and Buffy are the only Slayers left, and probably the last ones. Giles thinks the line of succession was broken somehow. I tried the spell again to disperse the power of the Slayer, but it didn't work. It was a complete waste of my magical ability. I couldn't do spells for a month. Meanwhile, the Potentials started facing new threats..."

Faith touched the ring that was still on her hand, the Braid of Souls. Willow babbled along. Now Faith knew that the Potentials lost their power about the same time Thor hit her with the poisoned net. Chimera must have marshaled all her strength to protect Faith, and that meant taking it away from the others.

Faith was surprised she didn't feel any concern over the end of the Slayer line. She was more concerned that she might be some kind of power vampire like Willow.

She decided to stand and move around. She felt strangely tense, but she said, "Thanks for dinner and the back rub. You've been really nice. I feel much better."

Willow smiled bashfully at the praise.

"I'm going to go into the living room and read, if you want to come along."

"You read now?"

Faith didn't know how to answer that. Willow must have known that she had read the Watcher journals to Angel to get his memory back. Maybe Willow's question was a joke. Or maybe Angel wasn't the only one with a faulty memory.

Faith wobbled into the big room and threw herself into her favorite chair. _Your Baby and You_ was right there on the table next to the her. Just touching it gave her a sense of well-being.

Willow came in and checked out the books in the shelves. "The Norse mythology books are out of order!" Faith hadn't realized they were organized. "Have you been looking at these?"

"Yeah. It was warrior society, so, you know. It was all honor through battle, tribe, and family."

"They also became wealthy through murder, plunder, and slavery, like some modern warlords."

Faith wondered if that was a barb against her. "It was tough out there for a Viking, But you're into Thor, so feel free to read any of these books."

"Thor isn't Viking. He's a demigod."

"He's from a Viking-like place."

"We don't know what Asgard is like."

"What's a demigod?" Faith hated to ask, but she was curious.

"A mythological god. The word comes from the Latin. Technically, it means 'half god.'"

"That's Thor." Faith put her feet up and asked Willow, "What do you make of all those giants and dwarves and things in the stories?"

"Oh, I'd imagine the giants were probably human enemies of the Norse, but maybe they were demons."

"But the Scots painted themselves blue, like in _Braveheart_. They weren't demons."

"What does blue have to do with giants?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe they were trying to look like demons to frighten others away." 

"Like the Vikings?"

"I don't think the Picts and the Vikings existed at the same time. Anyway, some scholars write that the giants were really Finns."

Faith had never heard that. "Fins like in fish?"

"Finns like in Finland."

"Oh, right." Faith felt her face turn red. "Do you think fairies existed?"

"They might have been craftspeople from southern parts of the world who worked metal long before the northern Europeans did."

"When I was growing up, my father would tell me stories about the fairies. Giles said they might have been aliens from outer space, you know, small, eerie, not a good idea to find and cross."

"New York showed us real aliens. They weren't as pretty as the fairies were supposed to be."

Loki's pretty face came into Faith's mind.

Willow went on. "There are good aliens, though, and good-looking ones, like Thor."

"Yeah, that guy," Faith said, trying to keep her mouth from tightening into a line of bitter hatred, trying to show no emotion at all.

"Look at all these books on magic!" Willow said with an awed and puzzled sigh. She delved into a book and the conversation ended until Willow, dropping off, left for the bedroom she'd picked.

The next day, Faith was putting a couple of Pop Tarts on a plate, even though she still felt a little strange. Willow walked in and stopped dead. Faith thought it was probably because she was going to use the microwave.

"Out of here in a sec," Faith assured her.

"I'd be happy to make breakfast," Willow offered. "Oatmeal pancakes?"

That didn't sound any better, but Faith was willing to try. Maybe they would stop the discomfort she was feeling.

As she got the ingredients together, Willow remarked casually, "You know, you can eat other things that won't expose the babies to so much sugar."

"I'm taking vitamins," Faith replied, before she admitted, "Sweet things seem to keep the babies happy. It relaxes them, makes them quiet."

"They are probably in a sugar-induced coma," Willow murmured, like she was joking.

"I need rest, too. I'm not trying to hurt them on purpose."

"I know. But you are taking care of two little ... beings." Willow wiped her hands on a towel and turned to Faith. "What do you think it's going to be like when they are born? Crying all the time, making demands of you..."

"I don't know. It's not like I planned this out."

"But that's the point, though, see?" Willow added in a helpful voice. "I mean, this whole thing about using an Internet doctor... do you know who's going to deliver the babies? Have you advised the hospital in Greenville that you are expecting?"

"I was on my way to Greenville when you showed up."

"Good," Willow said in a decisive voice. "You go to Greenville. I'll hold down the fort here."

That was crazy talk. "I can't drive down the Golden Road, not as big as I am. You came up that way. Too many things can go wrong. The only reason I was considering it was because I was alone."

Willow flopped into her chair. "I can't deliver a baby."

"I'm healthy. Nothing will go wrong." Faith added hesitantly, "Maybe you can help. You're a witch. You've saved the Earth, gave power to the Potentials, nearly destroyed the world at least once. Maybe you can watch while I give birth. You certainly know a lot about pregnancy, with all the talk about diabetes and stuff."

Willow returned to making the pancakes without saying a word. From Willow's jerky movements, Faith could tell she was pissed. The nuts that Willow threw into the batter practically exploded from her hand.

When the pancakes were cooked, Willow hurled them onto a long platter and plonked the platter on the table without comment, then grabbed syrup, jam and butter from the fridge and powdered sugar from the cupboard and put them near the platter. Finally, she took two plates from the cupboard and forks and knives out of a drawer, and sat down to eat. A whole mound of utensils and food sat between Willow and Faith.

Faith reached for the syrup and poured nearly a cup on top of the pancakes. Willow raised her eyebrows, but Faith couldn't shake the feeling that the babies really appreciated the extra umph. She liked it, too.

Willow sprinkled a puff of powdered sugar on her pancakes, more like a suggestion than an actual amount.

"These are real good," Faith said with her mouth full, but Willow said nothing, just ate in silence. Faith shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not asking you to stay, Will. You can leave any time you want."

"What if there's an emergency?"

"I have a back-up plan."

"What, a television doctor?"

Faith decided to use her ace card. She called out, "PROTIS?"

He responded, "Yes, Faith?"

Willow dropped her fork.

"How fast can you get a helicopter here?"

"I can have the Maine Army National Guard here in under thirty minutes. I could have a Quinjet here in a matter of minutes."

Willow sat stock still.

Faith waved her fork in circles in the air. "PROTIS, meet Willow. Willow, meet PROTIS."

"Hello, Ms. Rosenberg."

Willow threw an alarmed glance at Faith. "PROTEUS?"

"PROTIS. It stands for ... something. I forget. Um... probably, really, something tin man." She pictured the letters in her head. "Probably Really On Time and In Style." Faith counted off the words on her fingers. "No, that has an 'A' in it."

"What is PROTIS?"

"He was the younger brother of somebody."

"Is he alive?"

"I don't know. My PROTIS is a computer named after him. He runs the house, you know, opening doors, turning on lights, things like that."

"Where do you control it from?"

"He controls himself. It's like that thing Tony Stark had, you know, GERBIL."

"JARVIS," PROTIS corrected, sounding disgruntled.

Willow was horrified. "Do you know what Tony Stark built?"

Faith realized she stepped in it again. "Um, a household computer system?"

"Boy, Iceland must have been really isolated."

"PROTIS is a newer model than Stark's. He came with the house."

"Did you ever see the movie, _Demon Seed_?"

"Was that the one with the little girl?"

"That was _Bad Seed_. This movie had a computer that ran a house. Then it decided it wanted a baby, so..." 

"Oh, yeah, I remember! Wasn't that _The Forbin Project_ , though?"

"No. In _Demon Seed_ , the computer was named PROTEUS."

Faith broke into loud laughter, the first time she had really let loose since she landed in Maine. "Sorry. It was just really funny. Do you get it, PROTIS?"

"Faith, as a computer, while I understand the components of humor, I do not appreciate it as humans do." That made Faith laugh even harder.

Faith observed, "There was another movie like that, _Saturn 5_. Men must have been really afraid that computers would steal their women. I wonder what that was all about."

Willow looked frantic. "Do you have the operations manual for PROTIS?"

"I was installed remotely," PROTIS came to the rescue.

"Oh," Willow said, "Who installed you?"

The next half hour was spent with Willow asking questions and PROTIS answering them while still not giving the answers that Willow wanted. Faith didn't really understand the technical stuff, although she'd heard most of it before. She got that PROTIS was a quantum computer who operated in multiple dimensions with an infinite range of possible outcomes or states. She thought he was probably something more, but Willow seemed taken in. She got that JARVIS was a crude binary computer, yes or no, on or off. PROTIS had a third dimension, an unknown element. JARVIS was all memory and quick connections, metals and electricity... all muscular hardware. PROTIS was smaller and yet as powerful in his own way, more cerebral, more like a cloud.

"But like JARVIS, I was designed to be self-improving," PROTIS informed Willow, explaining that in a way Faith didn't understand. She heard that PROTIS took in information, weighed the success of his decisions, and learned as he went along, always predicting the success of his next move. Willow said he was like a self-driving car, but PROTIS scoffed at that. He said he shut down some parts and restored others so he could regenerate. That sounded very _Dr. Who_ to Faith, which made PROTIS a little more interesting to her.

Willow noted, "The problem with self-improving computers is that it's their job to make themselves better. In order to do that, they have to continue to exist, so existence becomes their primary goal. Anything that threatens their existence must be controlled, or even better, eliminated! I guess you know what I'm talking about."

"I believe you refer to Ultron. I am not like Ultron."

"Is your goal to improve yourself?"

"My goal is to serve my creator. When I improve myself, I do so to honor that being. I follow the creator's orders, but I can make independent decisions in a way to further the creator's interests. If the one disagrees with any decision, I will unmake it, or the creator will."

"Who is your creator, again?"

"My creator is someone I refer to as the Singularity."

"I mean, what is his name?"

"This is the name I use."

Willow's forehead wrinkled and her lips pursed. "Tell me, PROTIS: What would you do when someone, you know, threatens your goals?"

"I would try to determine which action would best serve my master."

"Even if you had to kill a human?"

"I do not see how such an action would be of benefit, unless it was to protect Faith or the children. There are many ways to disarm and disable. However, if such an action was useful and necessary, then I would not hesitate to take it."

Willow's voice became squeaky. "But if people were dead, your owner couldn't undo it."

"I am not certain of that. You brought the dead to life."

Willow rounded on Faith. "Did you tell him that?"

"I never told him anything about you," Faith said, agog.

PROTIS informed them that, "The Watchers' Files were put on a computer long before I was created."

"And when was that?"

"I was created after the Dark Hour."

Faith was glad PROTIS was getting the upper hand in the conversation. It didn't bother her that he might kill someone. Of course he might. So would she, in the right circumstances. It was what she did as a Slayer, sugarcoat it all you wanted. The very word Slayer meant Killer. She could probably even kill a human if she had to, not that she wouldn't try to prevent it in every way she knew how.

"What if you don't know what to do?" Willow kept pushing, but she'd also started to fidget in her seat.

"I would wait for directions from my liege."

Faith realized PROTIS was in the same boat she was in.

Willow was twisting her napkin. "What if I were to ask you to tell me all the business holdings your master has."

"I would ask you why you wish to know this information."

"Just curiosity. Maybe I'm going to become Faith's financial adviser."

"Then I could not tell you, for this does not seem a good use of the data. I cannot foresee any viable reason for you to have this information, for one of my functions is to manage Faith's finances."

The mention of the Watchers' files spurred Faith to jump in with, "Can you read S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files?"

"Of course," PROTIS answered in the way that reminded her so much of Loki.

"What do S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files say about me?"

Willow asked, "Where have you been? S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files are open to everybody. You can read them yourself. I looked at them before I came here. All they have about you is your criminal record and your time in England. They have less on me, of course."

"Why would S.H.I.E.L.D. make their files public?"

"You don't know about Hydra?"

"What is that, some kind of truth serum?"

"Not even close. It's..."

"No, wait, don't tell me. I read those myth books. Hydra's the woman with snake hair who turns you to stone when you look at her, right? She really exists? Did she force S.H.I.E.L.D. to cough up the secrets or get turned to statues?"

"No, that's Medusa," Willow replied, with exaggerated patience. "They say Hydra are Germans. They took over S.H.I.E.L.D., then released all their files. I think they wanted transparency because U.S. companies kept violating their privacy laws. All the release did, however, was create fear and justify this supernatural-hunting craze, with people going after bogeymen they don't understand and think they have no control over. Also, S.H.I.E.L.D. was keeping all sorts of supernaturals in prison, some of them for years, some of them kids, locking them up without trials, experimenting on them. Governments around the world are still hunting ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agents for that."

Willow was so earnest, it was almost painful to look at her. Faith felt fortunate that at least the information on her was so limited. She also felt lucky that S.H.I.E.L.D. only visited her and didn't try to take her into custody.

Willow said in a low voice, "Nobody trusts anything with that kind of might anymore, not after Ultron. And here you've got a computer much more powerful than Ultron, one that even I can't stop without knowing where's it's based." Willow turned a worried face to Faith.

Faith smirked and said, "PROTIS can see you. He can probably read your lips, too."

Willow was shocked. "You're OK with that?"

"It's not like he's human."

Willow glanced up at the ceiling, and asked Faith in a quiet voice, "Do you have an Internet connection here? My phone doesn't work."

Faith realized that Willow was about to flip. She ordered PROTIS to check the status of the wires. "He's gone now," she lied.

"Can you get away from him, your creepy overlord?"

"He's not... yes. I've left before. But I trust him. He makes sure I have food and keeps the house comfy and secure. He checks on the health of the babies. He's kept me company."

"It looks to me like it's kept you a prisoner!"

"No, it was my choice to stay here. It's been hard," Faith started, reluctant to spill her guts, even to someone she knew. "I didn't want to stay in one place, not doing anything much, but I thought it was for the best, for the safety of the kids, you know. Going out in the world seemed like setting myself up for a fall..."

Willow wasn't listening. "How can you trust him? You don't know what his true orders are. He might be keeping you here as part of a breeding program or some other unnatural experiment."

"I trust the person who made him," Faith answered simply.

"The king of Latveria?" Willow's eyebrows seemed to hover near her hairline.

"He's not a king. Well, he was once..."

"Faith..." Willow started, in an overly-patient voice, "step back and take in the big picture. You haven't always made the best decisions in life..."

"I know that," Faith snipped, trying to cut off the lecture before it started.

Willow jumped back a little, startled by Faith's quick response. She tried sounding concerned. "It's only... this mysterious cabin in the woods with its all-pervasive system of surveillance and control, keeping you doped up on junk food... you may have convinced yourself that this is a wonderful thing, I mean, it looks like easy living, no money down..."

"Oh, lighten up, Sandy!" Faith exploded.

Willow said in a cautious, light, overly-friendly tone, "I'm just trying to be your friend. It looks like you need an outsider's perspective." She threw her hands up in frustration. "You need to leave here right now!"

"I'm not going anywhere." Faith was trying to calm down, and completely failing.

"I'm not kidding, Faith. Listen to me. For your own good..."

"No, you listen to me. I don't even know why you're here. I didn't ask you to come. I haven't even thought about you for at least four years." Faith felt like she was climbing out of a hole. She wasn't sure how she fell in it. "How are we friends?"

"We've worked together in the past..."

"I've done a lot of things, not because I chose to, but because I had to."

"That's still a choice."

"I don't get to make choices. I'm a Slayer."

"You're here, though... not Slaying. That was a choice."

"Turns out the Slaying lifestyle doesn't go with pregnancy."

"But you made the choice to have a family. Now you can choose to raise them without this constant monitoring. You don't have to sacrifice your calling to have kids."

"Oh, so you have kids now and know about sacrifice?"

Willow got defensive. "I know about Buffy, who actually gave her life to save others. She has a family and she's still out there fighting."

"I'm not Buffy. And she didn't have babies." Faith was furious. It always came down to Buffy. "She had all of you, and she left all of you in lots of ways, including her Mom and Giles."

Faith had to admit to herself, though, as much as they worked her last nerve, Buffy's group was pretty much her family, too. Maybe that's why she didn't just throw Willow out of the house. She felt she had to put up with family, even if they bugged you. She was starting to wonder if that was a healthy outlook, considering how her real family treated her.

Willow remarked in a hurt tone, "Buffy always came back, though. We're still a team."

"Look, I'm not judging you. But what would you do if you weren't fighting with Buffy? It's your whole identity. It isn't mine." Still, Faith was unsettled. Was she really a worthless waste, a coward? Was she doing enough to save the world? She took a conciliatory tone. "Buffy's better at the balance thing. I've been trying to quit Slaying since, like, forever."

"Sure, but what I don't understand is why. You really seemed to like killing vampires and demons, much more than Buffy ever did."

Faith remembered. Killing gave her meaning and kept her personal issues at bay, until she stepped over the line. But she had seen so much since then. She'd gotten to know a whole race of giants that humans would only have feared and tried to destroy. She'd found someone who accepted her and wanted her for her thoughts and her feelings, not her fighting skills. She'd changed.

In response to Willow, Faith admitted, "I guess I just don't have the relationship to people that Buffy has. I mean, there's a world she thinks she's a part of, and she believes in helping people out, or something like that..." Faith didn't know what Buffy thought. They were supposedly alike, two Slayers in a sea of normals, but they had never been close. Plus, everything Buffy did Buffy never questioned. Buffy believed she was always right. That never happened with Faith.

"And you don't want to help people?"

"Things don't really work out with me and other people." Faith was starting to get uncomfortable, because who goes out and says they don't fit in with others? Those kinds of admissions usually give non-friends something to use against you. "I've always been a loner, looking out for myself," she added quickly.

"You still care about people, though, right?" Willow sounded desperate.

"Against my better judgment," Faith said. What she didn't add was that they didn't care about her. It was easy for all of them to leave her, even Loki. Feeling sad, she shook her head and said, "It's complicated."

"But... some complications are good," Willow responded optimistically.

"Like my babies, you mean?"

"Well, no... I mean, what I had in mind was friends, like Buffy, Dawn... you know." She picked up a little steam. "You can't be selfish all your life, Faith."

"Selfish? I was a Slayer for years, putting my life on the line for others, no questions asked. Now here you are, probably wanting me to give something else, without bothering to find out in advance what I've been doing or if I'd want to help, if I could. All your questions aren't for me. You're just trying to figure out if I'll be useful. You don't even care that I'm pregnant. It's like an inconvenience for you, something you didn't plan for."

"That's not true..."

"The thing is, I am going to help."

Willow stopped trying to interrupt, then repeated, "You're going to help?"

"Yeah, and no questions asked. Did you think I wouldn't?"

Willow said, "Well... I wasn't sure..."

Of course she wasn't.

Faith felt a moment of panic. She had no idea what she'd just agreed to do. That made her even angrier.

"I'm not an idiot, you know. You're only here because you're helping Buffy. She's the only one you care about, but only because she let's you belong and she gives you a purpose. You're not in it for helping people. You're in it for any excuse to practice magic and not feel guilty about it. Just remember that you're in my house and try to show a little respect."

Willow started to frown and her eyes darkened. Faith realized too late that she might have said too much.

But right then, her whole body was gripped in a massive contraction. She let out a howling scream. The good thing was that it broke Willow's concentration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on this.


	4. Stars Are Born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Incoming, with a little help.

Faith used to chase the extreme pleasures, until she realized if she kept trying to maintain the highs, she couldn't maintain anything else. Like with drugs: she could try to live in a perpetual chill or try to find the hairiest thrill, but she couldn't do either without the drugs becoming her whole life. On the flip side, she knew pain. She'd watched the death of her first Watcher and knew the shock and confusion of losing a loved one. She knew that if she had to relive those feelings of grief over and over, she couldn’t have continued to live. Fortunately, with time, the ache for new highs and the sorrow of old losses lessened. Breathing got easier. Some shadows remained, especially for the stuff she didn't deal with, like guilt or fear, but their hold over her didn't fill her every moment.

Faith figured it was that way with childbirth: if women were constantly remembering the pain of bringing kids into the world, they'd probably never voluntarily do it again, and humanity wouldn't survive. So, after the babies were born and she got some rest, she wasn't too worried that most of her memories of giving birth were made of other people's stories. At some point in the delivery, everything was happening and she was too tired to pay close attention. She wasn't completely unaware of her surroundings, but she concentrated her energy on bringing her daughters into the world.

What she did remember were the things that really bugged her. She remembered Willow's non-stop monologue about how unprepared she was, her voice going up and down like an opera singer practicing yodeling. She remembered PROTIS' toneless recital of how far apart her contractions were, like a GPS on repeat, telling her to turn left here, turn left here, turn left here. She remembered the wolf-like howls that accompanied her contractions, and the bursts of giggles that followed them.

But first, there was the huge tub filled with hot water and bubbles.

"I drew a bath," Willow burbled, her face open with round eyes and a bright smile, eager to please, trying to look like everything was under control.

"Huh?" Faith had commandeered one of the sofas in the great room to deal with the major upheaval of two babies ready to pop. She wanted to lie back and let the couch support her body, but she moved so much with each sudden seizure, the floor was beginning to look pretty stable from a couple of feet up. No falling had to be a bonus. Still, fur rugs covered its surface. She didn't want to get them dirty.

"Water births are the most natural way to do this, ah... mommy thing."

Faith wondered if Willow had become borderline hysterical, pulling out some wacky Wiccan theory while falling back on baby-talk. "I read that blood and stuff can get in the water and cause infections, especially if the babies breathe in the water."

PROTIS started in. "Studies have shown that..."

"We don't need you here," Willow interrupted.

"I want him here!" Faith objected.

Willow pouted. "What does a machine know? It can't comprehend the ancient wisdom, the hard-earned experience, of thousands, or maybe millions, of women."

"He knows a lot."

"But, PROTIS not a physical being that feels pain or joy, or any human sensation. PROTIS is a creepy A.I. put here to watch you like you're some sort of experiment, or a baby mill."

"I trust him!"

"Fine," Willow replied with a pinch of annoyance, like it was Willow's decision if PROTIS stayed or not. Faith didn't think she could get rid of him, anyway.

Willow went back to the water kick. "Water would support your weight. It can be naturally cleansing. How can I watch you and sterilize things at the same time?"

"I don't know. Word on the street is you're a witch. Sterilizing should be right up your alley, along with boiling and scourgifying. What do you need to sterilize?"

Willow looked around wide-eyed, "I guess I can start with the tub."

"The water will only get dirty again."

"I can keep it clean."

"Won't it get cold?"

"I can keep it warm."

None of it sounded fun. "That's what you want to use your magic for? What if you need to do something big, like move the babies out if they're stuck, and you've used up all your mojo?"

Willow was gulping air, but instead of hyperventilating, she started ranting. "This is the best I can do! I came out here as a favor to Buffy. I never signed up to deliver a baby. Big deal, so I'm a witch. Knowing about childbirth is not automatically included in the package! A person has to study for years to become a midwife or even a doula! I never expected to be delivering children and I have no background in it. And I've got nothing to fall back on! I can't get an outside connection here. There's no Internet... I can't look things up."

Willow was more frantic than Faith, and Faith was the one having the babies. If Faith had been scared, Willow would have pushed her over the edge. Faith felt calm, though, like she could handle whatever was going to happen. She had a good team with PROTIS and Chimera, a good backbone. She told herself that having Willow there had to be a plus. So she assured Willow, "Don't burst a blood vessel. I'll get in the tub."

Faith eased herself off the couch. She grabbed her book and held it tightly, and lumbered into her bathroom with its large tub. She handed the book to Willow as she peeled off her loose clothes and flopped into the water.

The bath Willow had drawn was lukewarm, but better that than scalding. Waves of soapy suds sploshed over the sides as Faith eased herself into a sitting position. The water did help with her weight, but she still felt like sitting there wasn't right.

Willow deposited herself in a chair she'd dragged over to the tub. She turned the pages of the book at a manic pace, cramming on how to assist with a birth. Faith knew that Willow wasn't tops in an emergency. She needed time to research and plan, or she needed someone else, like Buffy, to make the on-the-spot decision.

Willow asked how far apart the contractions were.

PROTIS helpfully informed her, "Contractions that are four minutes apart, lasting one minute, over at least one hour, generally mean that a human female is in labor. Faith is at this stage for humans. However, given that..."

"Got it," Faith stated quickly, before PROTIS could elaborate. 

Willow buried her head in the book. Faith was left to wait for the wracking pain, for a moan that would end in a yowl.

"It says here to breathe through the contractions."

"Breathing over here, boss."

"And don't push too hard. Let things happen naturally."

"Uh-huh." Faith didn't want to push. She knew that came later.

"How much have you dilated?"

Getting up out of the water to be examined was awkward. "Should I sit on a chair?" Faith sat on the side of the tub and waited to be measured.

To Willow's credit, she didn't bat an eye. Instead, she asked, "How am I supposed to measure the cervix?" She rifled through the pages of the book. "It says here not to introduce germs or an infection."

PROTIS blurted out, "Faith has dilated to two centimeters." Willow squinted at the ceiling, probably looking for cameras. "Three and three-quarter minutes since her last contraction," PROTIS stated in a crisp, almost cheerful voice. "All vital signs normal."

Willow flipped through the book. "There's nothing about water births in here."

"Yeah, I read it." Faith gripped the side of the tub as another contraction started. She sank back into the water, which helped a little. The babies were unusually still, like they knew something radical was going to happen. Just the day before, they seemed to be fighting each other to get out first.

PROTIS continued, "I estimate that a human female of Faith's size should be ten centimeters before pushing can safely begin. These infants are larger than most humans, however. Even so, I estimate that ten centimeters should be safe."

"What if I don't get that big?"

"Oh, god," Willow paled. "What if I have to do that cutty thing?"

"An epistiotomy?"

Willow gazed in horror at Faith.

Faith shrugged her shoulders. "It's not like I haven't been cut in the past. You brought the surgical tools up here, right?"

Willow stared at her like Faith had stepped off the set of a _Saw_ movie.

"Hey, I could probably do it myself," Faith quipped.

PROTIS informed her, "You will be unable to view the area of incision."

Faith sighed and informed Willow, "The surgical tools are in the basement, in the cupboard with all the knives and swords, next to the freezer." Willow was cemented to the spot. "Let me get them," Faith decided.

"No, I'll get them!" Standing up, Willow chirped, "Where else would a person keep surgical tools except next to the food in the garage? I know that's where I keep mine."

"Next time I'll keep them under the bed for convenience."

"Or maybe just keep them with you at all times." Willow stood up. "Well, seeing as how PROTIS is in control and I'm not doing anything else... " Willow added somewhat uncertainly. "You'll be all right on your own?"

"We're fine."

PROTIS repeated how far apart the contractions were and how dilated Faith was. Willow left in a flurry as Faith settled further into the water. With Willow gone, the bath got cold fast. She reached for a towel and waited. She briefly wondered if she could reconsider the whole thing.

By the time Willow came back with the bag of surgical tools and a line on her forehead, Faith's teeth were chattering. Willow waived her hand over the water and said some Latin words. The water became warm enough that Faith actually relaxed.

The next contraction was sharper and longer. Faith almost screamed. The insistent, high echo of a wolf's howl called in response.

Willow nearly fell out of her chair.

Faith heard loud music, some bright, poppy rap song with female back-up singers. She pictured one of those beer commercials where a truck pulls up, the doors open, and a full-blown beach party spills out. She wondered if Duffman's blimp made a landing in her driveway.

Faith asked, "PROTIS, what's that noise?"

"Nine female humans have parked a van next to Miss Rosenberg's vehicle," he answered in his blase way.

"It sounded like a wolf." Faith thought of Oz. "Or werewolf."

"The young women have a canine with them."

Willow admitted in a tentative and apologetic voice, "They're Potentials."

Faith scowled. As soon as Willow mentioned the Potentials to her, Faith had been fairly sure Buffy wanted her to do something with them. "You're sure it couldn't be someone else?"

"Are you expecting someone?"

Faith felt a sarcastic remark melt away as she realized no-one else was coming for the birth. "What are they doing here?"

Willow looked guilty, not meeting Faith's eyes. "I didn't have a chance to explain it."

"Lucky day! Now's your chance."

"We want you to take some of them. We think splitting them up would give them a better chance at survival."

"Why me? I mean, there must be lots of allies who'd take them in. I thought you guys had set up some kind of network when Harmony did her thing. Then there's Kennedy's group."

"Everything fell apart when people started hunting supernaturals."

Faith was silent for a few moments while Willow fretted. Finally, Faith said, "Better let them in." As an afterthought, she yelled after Willow, "Ask them a question only they would know the answer to." So much for keeping her presence a secret.

Faith stared at the door. She wanted to get dressed, but that would be disobeying "doctor's orders."

As she sighed heavily, a huge, black, shaggy dog sprang into the room, dragging on its leash a girl who looked like a child. The dog ran to the tub, jumped in, and started splashing, its elegant tail wagging in a happy circle, flipping suds everywhere.

"Ripper," the girl said, trying to pull the dog out of the tub. "That's his name. I know it's scary, but he's really friendly..."

"I knew someone nicknamed 'Ripper'," Faith remarked, scrambling to get out of the dog's way.

The girl managed to heave the dog out of the tub, falling on her back from the effort. Ripper shook himself vigorously and doused the girls who had followed into the room. The visitors stopped in their tracks and opened their mouths when they saw Faith. They were awestruck.

Willow was sort-of hiding behind them, ordering in a wavering voice, "Get that dog out of here!"

"Dogs are sanitary," Ripper's owner protested, getting to her feet. The dog was as big as she was.

"You're Faith?" one of the girls asked in thinly-veiled disbelief. "You're having a baby?" another asked in a wondrous hush. "We heard you screaming from outside. We thought it was torture," said yet another. A gaggle of excited voices rose up at once.

Willow came forward and said in a sunny voice, "I suppose I should make introductions." Another wave of sound arose at that. Faith couldn't make anything out of it.

Faith struggled to get a firm hold on the slippery curve of the tub's side. She gripped hard as another contraction came on. She let out another yowl. The dog threw its head back and howled along with her.

"She should be in bed," one of the girls announced with authority.

"I don't know..." Willow started.

"I do. I've delivered lots of newborns, and assisted at births."

"You've delivered babies?" Willow asked incredulously.

"Cattle, sheep, goats."

"She's not a goat," Willow remarked.

"She's right here!" Faith complained. She ran her eyes over the goat-girl, who must have been about thirteen or fourteen easy. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen, going on fifteen."

Anyone who said "going on" was still a kid. "You're too young to be a vet," Faith observed with skepticism.

"I grew up on a farm. I was in 4H. Bred pack goats." She said this as she spread a towel in her arms, ready to dry Faith off. She motioned with towel-covered hands for Faith to stand up. She gave the other girls instructions to help Faith out of the bathtub, dried off, and onto the bed, to get extra sheets, to wash their hands, to boil water and use antiseptics, to get more towels. She seemed to have it covered.

"Do you want to give birth lying down or on all fours, or do you want to kneel? Just eyeballin' tells me these babies are bigger than normal. Kneelin' might be more comfortable. You got options, though. "

Faith couldn't picture herself kneeling to give birth to Loki's kids. "I'll lie down." That's how all the moms did it on television.

"You can walk around a little, if you want. Might help move things along."

Faith had experienced enough trouble walking the past week. "What's your name?"

"Amity," the girl replied in a flat voice, feeling around Faith's torso with a frown. Faith figured the girl probably got kidded about Amityville Horror a lot, when the girl added, "Ames for short."

Willow brought the surgery bag over and hesitantly handed it to Ames. Ames opened it and glanced inside, before pulling out a stethoscope and placing it on Faith's stomach. She looked up at Faith. "What do we got here?"

"Twins. Girls."

Ames shook her head in acknowledgement. PROTIS had been chiming out micro-measurements of dilation, temperature, heart beat, and on and on. Ames barely paid attention to PROTIS. Maybe household computers weren't that unusual on farms.

Meanwhile, Potentials milled around the room, waiting for instructions. One of them began talking to PROTIS, her neck craned to stare at the ceiling. Faith heard her ask who "tin man" was. Ripper had dragged its owner into the tub and was playing tug-of-war. Willow was warbling away like some Florence Nightbird, trying to organize the girls, who weren't listening. Faith felt like she had gone from a lonely lighthouse on a stretch of jagged seacoast to a furious rap battle in the middle of a sideshow.

"How many of you are there? I mean, Potentials?"

"Nine here," Amity answered without further elaboration.

One of the girls told Willow she needed to take her bags out of the van. Faith told the Potentials to find a room somewhere. "Some of you might have to double up."

Willow piped piped up to inform them that one of the rooms was hers. She amended that to say she'd help them pick rooms.

Faith added, "Help yourselves to food in the kitchen. PROTIS will lock up after you get your stuff out of the car."

They all left, except for Ames, who had asked a girl she called "Ling" to find a spot for her in one of the rooms.

"Your friend?"

"She's the least trouble," Ames stated. She had a way of talking that cut off further conversation. That was fine, because Faith was too busy for small talk. "Contractions coming faster," Ames said. "These aren't exactly little ones. Their father must have been some horse. Might be a tough birth."

"I'm a Slayer. I can handle it."

"Slayers bleed just like other women," Ames informed Faith in a matter-of-fact way.

"I'm gonna be OK," Faith asserted. This was just another battle she had to win. She was certain she would.

Ames blinked a couple of times and replied, "Guess women have been birthin' babies since forever, or for the past few years, at least. But you got some scarrin' in your birth canal. Mind tellin' me how that happened?"

"It's a long story. Is it important?"

"Might complicate things. Does it hurt?"

"No," Faith answered truthfully. It hadn't hurt since Loki gave her the antidote to Odin's poison.

After a few minutes of silence, which Faith was grateful for, she asked, "So you grew up on a farm?"

"Yep. I helped my mom with the crops. I was the one who mostly handled the animals. Made me join 4H so I could learn to be a farmer' wife."

"You're just a kid."

"My father didn't think so," Ames replied, her lips tight.

"You said 'mom' though, so I'm guessing he wasn't around much."

"He was around."

Faith didn't need more details. All Potentials were the same in a few ways: they were physically fit, they were young and attractive, and they had crappy relationships with their fathers.

She thought she should try to push. Ames noticed and put her hand on Faith's stomach. "Just relax for now, and breathe. You ain't dilated enough."

"Can you do an epistiotomy if I need one?"

"I can do it, and a Cesarian, too. You won't need 'em, though."

Faith felt a wave of worry. If there was any kind of surgery, she might be too out of it to fight for the babies. Taking a chance, she said to Ames, "Swear that no matter what happens, you won't harm the babies."

Ames smiled like she'd seen a thousand yards of dusty road and nothing beyond it, like she was already ancient. "New mom," she remarked. "Nothin'll happen to you."

"Not me. It's the babies. What if they're... not, you know, normal?"

Ames' eyes ran thoughtfully over Faith. She pinched her lips together. "The Potentials are mostly good folk. However, to put your mind at ease, I'll do you one better. I promise to protect the babies."

Faith let her breath out, but she realized Ames had another universal Slayer trait: she could size up a situation on the run, but even so, she jumped in based on gut instead of reason. Slayers kept their word, though. Faith had been probably the only exception to that rule. She felt the old churning shame rise up thinking about that.

A few of the girls reappeared. Willow wasn't with them. Someone said she was busy trying all their phones to see if she could make a call.

The Potentials had found the pizza, and they brought hot slices and cans of soda into the room with them. With the pizzas and drinks, the Potentials were standing around watching like it was an exhibition game at Fenway. A few of them huddled together, looking completely lost. They didn't speak at all. At least some were helpful, asking if there was anything she wanted: food, water, foot massage, music.

The noise wound down to the level of a civilized cocktail party at some point. PROTIS lit the fireplace even though it wasn't cold. The Potentials gravitated towards the fire. All she needed was for someone to starting singing, "Kumbaya."

She thought wryly that if Loki really was the god of chaos, then the birth of his children was totally on point.

They all seemed to know about Slayers not getting pregnant, so they asked a lot of questions Faith wasn't prepared to answer. They didn't push her about the father, though. She begged off talking based on being in the middle of giving birth.

"You're a Slayer, right?"

"Yeah. _The_ Slayer, but.. you know."

"She's a Slayer," one girl who reminded Faith of Buffy said. The girl set herself up as a personal interpreter to some Potentials who probably didn't speak English and couldn't understand her anyway. Everything Faith said, the girl repeated, only simpler and louder. She was worse than PROTIS, who yacked out yet another in his endless centimeter readings. Faith was so exasperated, she yelled out, "Never mind that. How long have I been in labor?" She had settled into a very painful groove that showed no signs of ending.

"Four hours, ten minutes, and twenty-three seconds," PROTIS answered.

"Four hours? It feels more like a whole day!"

"A day is twenty-four hours, although that is an imprecise measure..."

"I'm gonna need you to be quiet," Ames stated.

Faith's frustration showed its teeth. "How am I supposed to be quiet? I'm having a baby!"

"Not you," Ames clarified, "that machine. It's making you more nervous than you need to be."

Faith thought about it, and agreed. "She's right, PROTIS. Just monitor the situation in silence and only say something if there's anything wrong or if I ask."

Ames also asked the Potentials to leave the room and keep their commotion to a minimum. After they left, it was so quiet that Faith was grateful that Ames had finally spoken up about the noise.

But soon enough, techno beats rose up from the floor below. She always thought the house was built solid, but she'd never been in both the theater and the master bedroom at the same time. If they listened to music at the volume Faith did, nothing was impervious.

Someone else downstairs started playing a movie. Eventually, she only heard muffled voices, so they must have settled on the film. After some rumbling, she thought she heard a man yell out, "Troll!" If it was the movie she left in the queue, it was practically a documentary to her. Watching it could only prepare the girls for becoming Slayers, if that was still possible.

Faith figured they all had a stake in a Slayer being pregnant, although if what Willow said was true, they weren't Slayers any more. They were just young girls. Like Ames said, they seemed like good people. Even the few who weren't into the pregnancy had stood by in case they could help, until Ames threw them out. She must have realized it got so Faith couldn't breathe.

Willow came back into the room, but she sat on the far side of the bed in her chair. She told Faith that there had been fewer human births when there was no magic, so this was a rare event for the Potentials in more than one way. Faith was glad the girls were there because it meant she didn't have to be in Willow’s debt. Not that Willow would hold it over her, but Faith knew Willow could be ruthless when she needed to be.

Thinking about Willow's power gave Faith a twinge of dread. If the kids looked like demons, she wasn't sure she could fight Willow after giving birth, not to mention taking on nine Potentials. There was also the dog, who yowled every time Faith had a contraction, causing the girls to fall into fits of giggles.

When Faith hit the eight-hour mark, the contractions had become less frequent, but more intense. She started to feel a wicked urge to push. She was still not dilated enough, though. Willow reported that the girls had crashed out after their long trip, except for Ling, who had quietly reentered the room at some point. Ling followed Ames' lead completely, and even made moves of her own, massaging Faith's feet and legs and bringing her a cup of hot cocoa, ignoring Willow's questions. The chocolate gave Faith a powerful boost of well-being. Ling also sang some kind of lullaby in an absent-minded lilt. Faith liked the tune. It made her feel like she was in a dream.

At eleven hours of labor, Faith fell asleep between contractions. Other than the occasional noise coming from Faith's room, the house was still. Willow had fallen asleep in the chair. She only stirred when Faith gave another push.

Finally, Ames asked PROTIS how far dilation had progressed, and he said ten centimeters. Ames said to Faith, "You are not dilated enough. I don't care if you are a Slayer, this is too hard on you. We have to do something."

"I think that drug's in the operating bag, the one that induces labor."

"Havin' no truck with that."

"You're going to operate?" Faith mumbled, her grogginess swept aside as adrenalin prepared her to fight. "If you want me to sign something giving consent, I'll do it."

"Don't need it."

Ames woke Willow up and said she might as well sleep in a bed, as it might be a while. Willow made some objection about staying, so Ames asked her to take Ling to her room since Ling was tired and Ling would only listen to someone with authority. Willow smiled at Faith with a look of mild sympathy and asked if she needed anything. Ames shook her head at Faith in a minute no.

When they were gone, Faith asked, bewildered, "Wouldn't it be better to have them here for surgery?"

"I'm usin' a spell," Ames announced as if it was every day bland.

"Don't you need Willow?"

"No," was her abrupt reply.

Ames moved her hand in a widening circle over Faith. Faith could feel her body stretch open. "This might hurt."

"It hasn't been a day at the spa so far," Faith croaked out. "Could you put on some music?"

Ames didn't even ask why. She handed Faith the headphones near the side of the bed. "Don't want to wake the house."

"Won't my screaming do that?"

"You won't need to yell."

Faith asked PROTIS to play "Start Me Up" by the Stones. Listening to it gave her the extra oomph she needed to push. The song always filled her with joy.

Faith thought she saw the fire burn brighter and the flames turn green, while the room cooled significantly. With a couple of big pushes, the babies made a smooth glide into the world.

Ames caught them and shot a grim look at Faith, who had tossed off the headphones and was reaching for her children. They hiccuped, but didn't cry. Ames ran a wet cloth over their faces and handed them to Faith, who was aching to hold them, like it was the only thing that ever mattered in her whole life.

Faith thought they each must have weighed fifteen pounds at least. They were a pale, robin's egg blue, with the beginnings of lines on their pushed-up skin. Frost giants, then, although miniscule compared to the only infants Faith had seen on Jotunheim.

"You swore you'd keep them safe," Faith whispered harshly at Ames. Her muscles tightened as she held her babies close. She was ready to tear down anything and fight her way past anyone if she had to.

"No problem here," Ames said curtly.

Just in case, Faith reached out. "PROTIS, you there?"

"I am here, Faith. Congratulations on the birth of your daughters."

"Thanks. Can you seal the door?"

"Already done."

Ames said, "Now you need to deliver the afterbirth and let me fix up that spell."

Faith's legs were still up. Ames moved her hands in a reverse motion, and Faith felt tingly and cool. Ames said no words for any of her spells.

Faith beamed at her two girls, tears in her eyes. They were wonderful. But still, as she held them in her arms, all she could think was, "Turn human! Look human!"

They opened their eyes, which smoldered with red. They smiled back at Faith, and changed like the horizon at sunrise after a moonlit night, from a cool blue to the palest pink. Their eyes settled into a green-tinged brown.

Then, as if they were startled by this change, they burst out crying. Knocks began at the door, which Faith instructed PROTIS to open. The room was invaded by Faith's house guests. Willow stood in the background, a concerned look changing into a pleased smile, then slowly into a worried frown.

Ames washed the newborns while the Potentials helped with the sheets and tried to give Faith a nightgown, which she waved away. Someone found clothes for the girls. The Potentials oohed and aahed, and vied for chances to touch the infants, even as the huge babies loudly protested. Ames finally unloaded them into Faith's cradling arms and told her to try to nurse. Ling coached her through it without words. The Potentials watched in rapt silence broken by a few squeals. Faith was just happy the babies got the hang of it right away.

After feeding the babies, even though she was exhilarated, Faith was exhausted. The girls were yawning and closing their eyes. She worried that they might forget what a human looked like. She silently appealed to Ames, who gave her a hardly-noticeable nod.

Ames became adamant that the new family had to get some sleep, and Willow backed her up. The Potentials reluctantly trickled out of the room.

"I'll stay here tonight," Ames informed Willow in a brook-no-opposition voice.

Willow drew back in surprise. "I'm a friend of Faith. I'll stay here. You worked all day."

"I know how to watch after moms who've delivered. I think Ling does, too." Ling smiled at the mention of her name.

"OK. I'll bring the babies into the nursery and watch them there," Willow offered.

Faith felt a wild surge of feral protectiveness. She wished she'd packed more weapons near her bed.

Ames merely answered, "They're good here."

"But Faith needs to rest!"

"But I know how to handle young'uns." 

Willow bristled at the unspoken implication that she didn't know how to care for babies. "I've babysat," she assured Ames.

"That'll come in handy later on."

"It's all right, Will," Faith assured her. "You should get some sleep."

Ames kept her eyes on Wilow as she shifted in discomfort and left in a semi-huff of disappointment.

"Thanks for everything," Faith yawned, fighting drowsiness.

"No problem." Ames stepped over to one of the girls and cupped her head in her hand. "They sure are giant for girls. Need to weigh them."

"Scale's in the bathroom. About the blue..."

"Lack of oxygen, I guess." She gave Faith a look that left no doubt she knew better, but she added, "None of my business." 

"Great trick with the magic."

"Why I did so good in 4H," she said simply. "Woulda done it sooner, but I needed to get those two out of the room."

Faith was too sleepy to say anything more. 

Faith awoke with a jolt "Where are they? Where are my babies?" She settled down when she realized they were next to her, still very much alive. "Mama loves you," she whispered to them.

Faith saw that Ames was sleeping on a settee. Ling was in a chair, keeping watch over all of them. Ling came over and tested the diapers someone had put on the babies, then handed them into Faith's arms. Their sleepy eyes slowly adjusted to wakefulness. Faith wondered if it was time to feed them. She started nursing as they stared out into the room with a look of faraway concentration on their faces. A blaze was still going in the fireplace, even though it was one of the warmest parts of summer. The babies were transfixed by the flames.

Willow came in with a tray full of eggs, hash browns, and roasted bell peppers. She had cooked breakfast for the Potentials, she said. As Faith, Ames and Ling ate, Willow lingered, picking up the babies, exclaiming how heavy they were and how unusual it was that their eyes changed colors. Ames replied that they were probably overdue and eye color doesn't get fixed until children get older. Ling never missed a movement anyone made, though she kept an overall appearance of being meek and self-effacing.

Willow eventually went back to the kitchen, puckers playing around the edges of her mouth. The Potentials started to filter into the room. They crowded around the bed.

"Have you named them, yet?" the girl who reminded Faith of Buffy asked.

"Aisling and Embarr," Faith said, without thinking. Vision and imagination. Faith was just another Irish girl from Southie, representing.

"Aisling is for the dreamer," another girl, long-faced with dark brown hair and an Irish accent, remarked."Embarr is the horse that should never touch the ground."

"Good to know,' Faith answered. She still stuck with the names.

"They are so pretty," cooed a punked-out Hispanic girl who reminded Faith of Hopey from _Love and Rockets_.

Faith gazed down at the babies. They were almost too pretty, she realized with a start. They had smooth, pale skin, playful, glittering eyes, and sly, pink smiles. Babies had always looked the same to Faith before she had her girls. At least they weren't identical. Embarr was taller and had at least a pound on Aisling, who reminded Faith of Helen, half in this world and half in another.

"It's like there something not quite human about them," Willow, who had returned to the room, said lightly.

A slick-looking Asian girl, who might have been Filipina, said in a California accent, "You just saw a birth. Of course they look amazing."

Faith said, "They look like normal babies to me." But she thought they looked like their father. To her eyes, he was always incredibly beautiful. In any form, he looked like a porcelain doll liable to crack with pressure. The babies also had that too-perfect aura. Faith wondered if that was a curse or a blessing. Loki's appearance often attracted fascination and then hostility, like he was telling a lie just by being who he was, like only the surface mattered and the person behind it was unreal. She hoped the girls would grow out of it.

A well-dressed Black girl came up to the bed and asked if she could hold one of the girls. Hefting Embarr into her arms, she exclaimed with tenderness, "You are a monster baby!'

"That's my kid you're talking about," Faith warned with mock seriousness, arching her eyebrow.

"Cute little demon, though."

"Don't call them demons," Willow quietly warned.

The girl rolled her eyes as she handed the baby back to Faith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully the writing pace will pick up.


	5. Giving Back is Not So Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith goes from zero to twelve, counting the babies and Willow.

Faith turned on one elbow to check on her baby girls. Their chests moved with the steady rhythm of sleep. Their faces displayed tiny smiles, thin as their father's. Their bodies seemed to hover above the fur coat Loki had given her. The fur adjusted to the heat of the season when Faith wore it. Maybe it was keeping the girls cool. Maybe it also made them feel safe. It was from a home they might never know.

Streams of chatter washed around Faith and mixed with the smell of ripe apples and the smoke of the fire the Potentials built. It made the leaves of the orchard dance with light.

Faith rolled back to two elbows and let the night sky fill her vision, looking beyond the flickering shadows to the stars. She wondered if a constellation was named for Loki. He was probably too mobile and fast to be star system material... not permanent enough, a small voice nagged at her. She pushed away the doubt and anger that had once been her entire life. She had to trust him. She wondered if he was looking down at her from somewhere in the endless darkness

The murmur of Potential voices sharpened and pulled Faith out of her thoughts. The Potentials created a continual symphony of voices, some big like horns, some tiny like those little flutes, especially the girls trying new words. They had spent most of the day outdoors, training to fight, practicing magic, cooking and eating, lying around, and spoiling the babies. It was such a good time that when the sun went down, none of them wanted to go back into the house. They had their movies and games there, the kitchen with its view of the lake, the interior rooms built for lounging and talking or reading. Still, the world seemed so much larger and less restrictive when they were outside.

Being with the Potentials was like a prolonged slumber party, or what she thought a slumber party was supposed to be. She'd never actually been to one. She didn't count the time she bunked down with Potentials to battle the First. Even then, she kept apart when she couldn't slumber with the guys.

Or maybe being with the Potentials was like a Girl Scout thing, though she'd never done that, either. Some neighbor woman pestered her mom into agreeing that Faith could join the Brownies, but when Faith reminded her, she got a smack on the face and called stupid. How did Faith ever fool herself her mom was gonna spring for a uniform when ciggies and off-label vodka were sitting on store shelves?

The campout idea fit. All along, PROTIS had been sending food to a place called "Camp Ginnungagap," which Faith thought was a local, Native word. The girls called the place "Last Gap."

The house had its own drone that PROTIS sent to the market in Greenville. It was loaded down once a week with supplies. The drone slotted into the house. Runners distributed the goods. It worked fine when it was just Faith, but with Willow and nine potentials, PROTIS was looking at running the drone around the clock.

When the girls first got to Greenville, they naturally stopped at the market. They found the owner was expecting them. She had a trailer of food ready for them to bring to some camp none of them had heard of. The owner told them the camp director, Willow, had arranged it. In true Slayer fashion, they rolled with it.

"I wondered who was up there," the owner was reported as saying. "Seemed like just one person, a kind of weird -- or maybe bizarre -- survivalist, living alone in the wilderness, having pizza and ice cream flow in."

"It's not all pizza," Faith grumbled.

"Let us tell the story," Val replied.

"You can't even remember if its 'weird' or 'bizarre,'" Faith countered. "And, besides, survivalists live off the land."

"The ones I knew stored cans and boxes of food for the End Days," Talitha commented.

The store owner had asked the girls, "You affiliated with any group?"

Talitha named the church she'd grown up in. It must have been a group you didn't mess with, because the owner stopped asking. She just said, “Glad to see a new camp in the area. Tourism's down to nothing since the Dark Hour."

That was where Willow was now, at the market in Greenville picking up food for Last Gap. Willow volunteered to get the second large shipment. Faith figured she wanted to contact Buffy. Willow couldn't get phone reception at Last Gap.

Kimber was with Willow. She'd been dying to go to Greenville. She wanted to call some guy.

That was what started the argument that pulled Faith out of her dream state. Faith tried to focus on the conversation, but all she saw was a bunch of teenagers shooting their mouths off, punctuated by the word "Kimber."

Faith marveled that she now had a seemingly permanent collection of Potentials around her. They followed her everywhere except the bathroom. The strangest thing was that she didn't mind. They were as messy as Faith, but they cleaned up when she asked them. More importantly, they carried the babies for her, changed them, talked to them, and played with their hands and feet. They had different ways of dealing with the babies, ways that filled the holes Faith was afraid she carried, not having much of a mother herself. All of them together probably made a decent parent.

Faith had been worried she was gonna be wicked sad after the babies were born, the kind of soul-sucking depression that would have been bad for the girls. She had worried she'd never come out of it. Not to mention she hardly had nurturing skills for herself, let alone two babies. What kind of a role model could she be?

But with the Potentials, she didn't have time to be down on herself or feel things were hopeless. There was always somebody there to help. She didn't confide her sorrows or concerns to them, of course. She still had the Slayer's isolation. She still had the wall she put up to keep others from getting too close. The mistrust, it was still there, in spades.

Some of the Potentials were like that, too. She didn't push. She didn't give them don'ts and shoulds. She just tried to listen. Eventually, they wanted to talk to her. She was grateful for that. She never thought of herself as a people person. Slayers were meant to be loners and she learned the hard way that alone was best for her. There had only ever been one long-term exception, and that didn't exactly pan out the way she hoped. Being with Loki, it was difficult all along, and then it ended, without an explanation. It seemed that getting his trust was impossible. But with the Potentials, it seemed so simple.

And with Willow and Kimber gone, the stress simply drained out of the house. The remaining Potentials didn't agreed on everything, but being so young, they were not super set in their ways.

"Kimber will never learn," Day stated firmly.

Ames voiced this thought. "Cut her some slack, Holiday. Every person makes mistakes."

"So you do, too, Country?"

Ames nearly grinned. "No, not me."

They all laughed, and even Faith smiled in surprise. Ames reminded Faith of her lost daughter, Helen. She was beyond serious, the kind of drop-dead that people usually made fun of.

"You have no faults?" Darna directed her question to Day. Darna had education, courtesy of a hired personal teacher from the United States. She spoke the best English of the non-U.S. Potentials. She never hesitated to jump into conversations.

"I'm better than perfect," Day answered with exaggerated pride. She had the showiest confidence in the group.

"Do tell," Val commented as she rolled her eyes in a playful way. Val was short for "Valeria," or "Valley Girl," as Day liked to call her. Val flat-out announced she hero-worshipped Day. Faith could see there was a little more than that going on. She found it interesting that the nature of their relationship flew right by Willow, but then again, Faith never saw Willow looking for action. She probably couldn't recognize interest until it hit on her with a sledgehammer, like Kennedy coming out and telling her.

"I deal with my problems head-on," Day asserted. "I run my game on my own."

She hadn't done the best job, Faith thought, but she had survived, mostly on her terms, which included being an underage stripper for a time. Faith thought Day was going to be the problem Potential. The first words Faith said to her were, "No smoking in the house." Day got a "you don't impress me" look that Faith practically lived in as a teenager. But thereafter, nobody smoked at Faith's place. That was because Holiday turned out to be as steady as Ames. Day was born to lead and she stepped effortlessly into the role. She was extroverted and forceful.

Holiday's real name was Holly, named after an actress on the old _Jump Street_ show. Weird that Day's parents were as old as Faith. Holiday was a working name, but Day preferred it because she said her first name was too weird. She never gave a last name. Faith was sure if she did, it would be a fake.

Day was a California girl who looked and dressed like she walked out of a fashion magazine. Despite her elegant, high-class appearance, she had a goofy grin and a voice made hoarse by smoking, drinking and laughing.

She moved out of her mom's house when she turned 14. Her parents were out of work. A wave of automation killed about half the jobs in the U.S. Her dad was spiraling down on losing his job. He left the family to find work anywhere he could. Her mom eked out a survival on unemployment, doing nails on the side, before entering the junk collecting business like so many others. Technology didn't build an easy, workless society the way its promoters envisioned, but hey, the creators got rich, so no worries!

Even Day's teachers were computerized. All they did was measure how she scored on tests. She didn't have the equipment to study at home. She didn't see the point in studying when there were no jobs. So, she spent more time running around than she did at school.

Faith thought Day could have been her sister; they both grew up living close to the edge. But while Faith became The Slayer, Day just got deeper in trouble.

She started living out of dumpsters. Finally, an older girl she met invited her to move into her apartment and onto her couch. Even though her benefactor was twelve years' older, the senior girl had a relationship in mind. She got Day at a vulnerable time: no family, no home, no money. The woman gave her clothes and cosmetics, and made sure Day went to school, the whole _Pretty Woman_ scene. The woman was jealous and controlling, however. When Day finally told her to back off, the woman flipped and told her to leave.

Day had saved enough for a fake ID that aged her five years. She got a job at a club that didn't ask questions. Some jobs still needed the personal touch, although in-home delivery had decreased the number of customers. Day held onto her nice clothes like a lifeline, keeping them in her locker at work.

She met Val at a homeless shelter where Val worked the soup line. Day went there every afternoon before her shift. Val would take a break to sit with Day while she ate. Even though their life experiences were totally different, they were the same age and they managed to strike up a friendship.

One day, Day handed Val a letter. It was from "Rupert Giles." He wrote that Day was a Potential Slayer who was in danger and needed to come to San Francisco for help. It mentioned Buffy Summers. Day had heard about Buffy from Harmony's reality TV show.

"I got a letter, too!" Val told Day. "It's like Hogwarts!"

"Right -- street kids are secretly wizards." But Day had a sense that things were about to go down heavy in L.A. "You wanna skid to Frisco?"

"Hell yeah!"

"How do we get there, Valley?"

"You have a problem with my van?"

Val was an odd combo of a sheltered free spirit who couldn’t be kept caged, though there might have been a mental hospital in her past -- Faith wasn't sure she heard correctly -- not that that was a bad thing or all that unusual. Val dressed like a classic Seventies punk: torn black jeans, tattered black t-shirt, and black jacket with the name "The Girl For Me" painted in white on the back. She had one foot in being a tomboy, but her clothes managed to cover all her figure and still leave nothing to the imagination. She had half her head shaved and the other half in snake-like, multicolored strands. One arm was filled with tattoos of Disney characters tricked out like gangsters, all her designs. The bluebirds of happiness had switchblades in their mouths, that kind of thing. Her face was covered with piercings. She had a striking look, make-up to the nines, too much eye liner for eyes that refused to cry. She had a scowl that dared anyone to try something.

Her body said tough, but she was really an upper middle class girl who liked to hang out in gritty L.A. instead of her home in the bland burbs. She helped out at the homeless shelter, which got her food and a parking space for her van. Computers had taken over serving meals to the poor, but the Sanctuary was a hold-out, insisting other places served sawdust with gravy, unlike them.

Working in the shelter gave Val's life structure, that and her band. She was a screw-up in school, but not in her music. Her band practiced in a studio near the shelter, close enough to local all-ages clubs and the underground scene that was still happening in L.A.

Unfortunately, the other people in the band rarely had time for practice. They were living their normal lives, which meant hanging on to service jobs that barely put credits in their accounts. Their jobs could call at any hour, and they had to go. Meanwhile, Val was living La Vida 24-7. She slept in the van most nights. She practiced guitar continuously.

Fortunately, she had money. Her parents owned a company that developed robots. They basically bought her off to stay away from them. She was always causing trouble, starting fires, trashing their yard. They said they'd buy her a car and give her a gas card. She had them buy an ancient white-paneled van made of sketch held together by stubborn. It was the kind of anonymous van you heard about in police reports. The others in the band wanted Val to paint it with their band name, Milk Made, but she liked the fact that the van was a blank. It was the vehicle she learned to drive in, but she never bothered to get a license. She imagined her parents were paying insurance on it, since it was in their names. She never asked.

When Holiday came into her life, she got more responsible about the details. Now, she and Day were a couple of 16 year old girls, the oldest and wildest in Faith's group of Potentials. They had clothes and a van and they had each other, but beyond that, they barely had a clue. Kind of like Faith.

Even so, Day took the challenge of Last Gap head-on. Faith in the same spot would have been floundering, not feeling like she had the authority to decide anything. Day organized the big projects, like cleaning the house and holding regular training. Meanwhile, Ames revived the garden and the orchard. Ames was about a connection to Earth whereas Holiday was about connection to others. Day started English lessons for those who weren't native speakers. She got Kimber to teach the classes. Kimber like to tell people what to do.

One of those students, Sayara, spoke up for Kimber. "She had a bad thing, Day. Why do you ... make bad? Is ... good... she believe in a world."

It was amazing that Sayara had the heart to feel sorry for Kimber. Sayara's life had been so much harder, according to what Darna told Faith. Sayara was sold into marriage by her father at age twelve to a much older man in a nearby town, a man who had survived other young wives. Fearing the worst, her mother bundled up Sayara in the night and took her to a trader. Her mother used her savings to pay the trader to bring Sayara to the mother's brother in the city. The brother owned a company that sold raw materials to growing countries. He was filthy rich.

When Sayara reached the city, her uncle didn't put out the welcome mat. He said she brought shame on their family by not marrying the old guy. But her uncle had sons and a wife whose station in life had been better than his. His wife grew up with servants. So, Sayara became their cook, cleaner, babysitter, and if she was lucky, errand-runner.

Basically, she was their slave. She worked all day and was locked in her room at night. She didn't go to school. She had to obey her younger, spoiled nephews as well as their parents.

One day, she was rushing to the post office with some parcels. It was rare that she was let out of the house, and she ran through the streets to show she could be trusted.

Some guy, Darna said a local baker, came up to Sayara and stopped her in the street, grabbing her arm. She broke away, quickly checking to see if anyone was around who could report it to her uncle, who would blame her and call her a harlot. When she was sure nobody noticed, she set off again, trying to dodge the rude creep.

But he came after her, saying he was a friend. He yelled Giles' message at her. He added more quietly that he would help her if she followed him.

Sayara knew it was crazy, but her uncle always said the baker was honest, so she went with him. She was raised to be obedient, but she was also her mother's daughter.

The baker took her to some professor who taught at the local university. She stayed in the professor's house in her own room, where the servants delivered food to her with pinched faces. Even though Sayara spoke French, one of many languages she learned so she could serve her uncle's guests, she was uncomfortable in the professor's house. After a week, when the fuss over her disappearance died down, the professor took her to the airport.

Taking a long trip in the air, landing in the hubbub of an airport, having to reach her connecting flight, and doing these things alone -- Sayara was filled with terror. And once on the ground, she had to take a taxi with the professor's money and recite Buffy's address from a piece of paper. Giles spoke a few of her languages, at least, so she had that foothold in a foreign culture.

Sayara was a modest girl who was beautiful even though she covered up so much. She wore more clothes than the other Potentials, who except for Val and maybe Darna, dressed conservatively. Sayara was also a watchful girl who tended to stand apart from the others. Faith didn't blame her. Maybe she trusted Kimber because the older girl taught her English. Maybe that's why she spoke up when Kimber was gone.

Day responded to Sayara with, "Kimber creates her own troubles."

Kimber was the Potential who reminded Faith of Buffy. When she first met Buffy, it was all boy problems. But Kimber's troubles had been nowhere near as drastic as those of Buffy, or anyone else sitting in the circle in the yard. Kimber just got herself plastered nude all over the Internet. Faith could understand why that was traumatic for a kid, but honestly, a bad decision was every night for Faith when she was Kimber's age. Nude pics were the inevitable raw egg in the Tabasco. Most of the consequences Faith tried to shrug off.

But there was this older guy, when Faith was even younger than Kimber that used to hang around the school and give kids cigarettes and beers. The kids thought he was cool because he treated them like adults. One afternoon, he had her drinking with him in the alley by the side of the school. She got out of it real fast. He took her behind a dumpster and did what he wanted, then he left her there.

When she got home, even though Faith didn't say nothing, her mom looked at her like she knew what happened and it just confirmed that Faith was no good. Faith felt completely alone and confused. She wondered if was inevitable, if maybe she deserved it.

A few days later, some kids were going to the alley. She pulled one away, someone who was sort-of OK to her. She told him there was something not right about an older guy hanging with grade school kids. He laughed and told her to grow up. After that, kids at school treated her like even more like she was out of her mind, like she was some uptight chick out to jam the guy up. She switched schools pretty soon, anyway, so it didn't matter.

Faith thought she should be famous for her straight run of loser boyfriends. She'd convince herself everything was good, but they cheated in one way or another. She always left first. The thing was, she was so turned around in her mind, she didn't know what was what. She thought she was the one who had the responsibility. She didn't have confidence in her own feelings.

Kimber was going through the same things. That was probably why Kimber and Holiday didn't get along, or why Day saw Kimber as weak and full of delusion. Day thought Kimber was caught up in being a victim, like she hadn't learned from being betrayed and was still looking for ways to get hurt. Day owned her experiences and made them a part of her identity, the same way Faith thought she had, believing she had power and choice when, if she sat down and got real, that might not have been the whole deal. Pushing off emotions and deep thinking was a way to survive and to have control, but it didn't always lead to healthy decisions or deep-down happiness. It led her to build walls so thick she wanted to die behind them rather than risk being seen in her true, ugly failed-ness. It led Faith to some brutal actions she still had to live with.

When Faith became a Slayer, her Watcher told her it was her job to protect innocent people. So, one of the first things she did was go back to that school. The older guy was still around. She made sure he didn't hurt kids again. She never told anyone. She never regretted it.

Kimber wasn't like Faith at her age, though. First off, instead of just being out for a good time, she had a massive crush on the guy she gave the picture to, one of those teen do or die things. Second, Kimber took the picture because he asked her for it, which... obviously, she wasn't thinking with her head. Thirteen-year-old Faith could have told Kimber that as soon as Romeo got whatever he could, he was gone.

But this guy posted the picture to a blog on Yamblr, along with a bunch of lies about how he got it. He even included a score for performance. Boys in his circle followed up with nasty comments, then girls started posting lies, girls that Kimber thought liked her.

She couldn't go to her mother, who was the queen of denial -- probably where Kimber got her Pollyanna attitude. Kimber's father was out of the picture. He was a politician in Washington, D.C., on his third marriage. Because of his job, the nude photo got picked up by gossip outlets. Soon, it was everywhere. Kimber told her side of the story. Her father distanced himself even further from her, saying no harm was done, she was trying to destroy a boy's life. It got to where Kimber didn't know what to believe, like maybe she was the wrong one.

Her mom had enough money to take her out of her private school and get a home tutor. Still, Kimber couldn't get over the humiliation, and it was all there on the Web for her to revisit, which she did again and again. It was only after coming to Faith's house that she stopped worrying about it, probably because PROTIS shut down the Internet connection.

When Kimber got the letter from Giles, she thought it was a hoax to drag her out of mom's place and in front of the cameras. She ignored it. Then one afternoon, her bedroom turned dark. She had this feeling someone was coming to kill her. With her mother out of the house, Kimber ran out the back and drove off in one of her mom's cars. She drove to San Francisco.

At Buffy's, she learned that her mom's house had blown up. Kimber was presumed dead. Her mom smiled bravely on the national news. She blinked back dramatic tears as she said, "Kimber had so many troubles. She just didn't fit in with the students at her new school. Of course, I'm shocked she did this to herself. She's in a happier place now."

Kimber called her mother. Her mom told her to stay at her friend's house and she could come to San Francisco. Kimber waited, but her mother didn't show up.

She called her father. He said she was on her own.

So Kimber settled into Buffy's place. She had a new start. She was optimistic about life as a rule, and why not? She was a cute, blond girl with a naturally sunny disposition, smiley and bouncy. She always had a quip ready. She didn't have much to talk about that wasn't light and funny, which made a change from the more assertive Potentials who always argued.

Kimber had used her mom's credit card on the way to California. It came up on the news one day that the police were looking for Kimber. Buffy decided to ship her off to Maine.

"Who is this guy she's calling?" Faith asked.

"A figment of her imagination," Talitha offered.

Val grinned and added, "Basically. She met him at a hair salon. Like, he was way too old for her, and he didn't seem interested in robbing the cradle. But the dude was nice. He treated her like a normal person. That was enough for her to pine after him. He probably doesn't even realize she likes him."

Faith hoped that's what was going on and he wasn't like the lost causes she knew at that age. They never wanted normal from her. She always thought she was taking more than she was giving, but nothing plus nothing still adds up to zero.

Beth sounded bitter about Kimber's obsession. "She had a chance here, so why'd she go? To call someone who doesn’t know she exists? We have a good thing in Last Gap. Who cares what he thinks? What is she afraid of?"

Day replied, "That girl can deal with her own life. It's her problem. It ain't my problem."

"What if she brings world back to home?" Ling added. Faith could feel the mood of the group sink.

She was surprised Ling was the one to say something negative. Like Kimber, she tended to be optimistic. She was set on becoming a doctor, even though she was only fourteen and far away from home with no money, even though, Faith learned, most diagnoses and treatments were handled by computers, sort-of the way PROTIS took care of her until Ames and Ling stepped in. There were a few hold-outs like Willow, who didn't believe in digital diagnosis, but most people didn't have a choice.

Ling was raised in what remained of the People's Republic by a woman who took in orphaned girls. Ling got a good basic education. She even learned some English. She expected to spend the rest of her life in her village, providing health care for local workers, perhaps helping the parents she had never known.

One day, Ling was walking home from school when she heard a woman cry out for help. Ling ran to a house and found a woman deep in the throes of labor. She helped the woman through a difficult birth. She had no idea what she was doing, but she kept her head and made the right decisions.

The woman was old enough to be Ling's mother. She was married to a local official who always frowned at her. Ling never felt comfortable around him. He had left his wife alone that day, despite her advanced stage of pregnancy. When he came home, he was not overly concerned about his wife's health or the new daughter his wife had given birth to. He watched Ling with a hostility she was not used to.

The woman was impressed with Ling, however, and arranged for her to assist a local nurse. She paid the nurse to teach the young girl how to be a midwife. She gave Ling small amounts of money from time to time, calling them loans.

Ling's patron also had connections in Beijing. Through her, Ling received the letter from Giles.

The woman gave her the funds to travel to Hong Kong and directions to a friend's house. The friend helped her get passage to San Francisco. Ling found Buffy and showed her Giles' letter. To her relief, Giles came to the door and greeted her in Mandarin.

Still, there was nothing for Ling to do in Buffy's house. She had been useful in China. And even with a large Chinese population in San Francisco, Ling felt out of place in a metropolitan area. She was told to stay near Buffy's building, anyway. Then she found she was going to travel across the United States with eight other Potentials in a large, white van.

She and Ames were drawn to each other and had remained friends, despite the language and cultural barriers. It was hard to say they were real close, because Ames held people at arm's length. But she and Ling were quiet, serious, practical people. Faith figured this was why Ling wondered aloud about Kimber possibly bringing trouble to the group.

"PROTIS is tops when it comes to keeping this place off the radar," Faith assured her. "Plus, we got a crazy group of Slayers here."

"You're a Slayer," Talitha interjected. "We aren’t."

"Yeah, but you've all got the makings. I mean, Buffy wouldn't have sent you here if you didn't."

Talitha made a sour face. "Buffy sent us here because we have all the lackings. We were the most useless, the misfits and juvies. Those who aren't don't speak English."

Faith had to turn away. She had already confronted Willow about that. "They are the screw-ups, aren't they? The ones Buffy didn't want to deal with."

"You weren't so straight yourself at one time."

"I've batted a thousand compared to these girls."

"Sure, what with the unwed motherhood and the general lack of direction..."

"Are you saying something against my kids?"

"Of course not," Willow assured her. She took a breath, "Well, sure, it's possible these girls are from bad situations. They all need support. But maybe Buffy sent them to you because you are able to help them. It might be easier for you to understand them."

Faith didn't know how to take that. She was already feeling bad about bursting out and putting them down. And since that conversation, Faith wondered if she should watch over the girls a little more.

On the other hand, Faith couldn't be bothered to tell others how to live their lives. She tried to give them what she could, but what did she know? Sometimes she felt like she should be their mom, they were so young. She didn't look much older than they did, but she'd seen a lot. She at least made it to high school. She guessed she was an elder. It felt strange.

Faith responded to Talitha's dismissal of the group as rejects. "You just described every Slayer that's ever existed -- mostly. How do you think girls are chosen to be Slayers? We are the ones who have the most to prove and the least to lose."

Just as the words came out of her mouth, eight pairs of eyes focused on Faith. It was something that happened whenever she mentioned the Slayer legacy. She never got used to it. She touched the Braid of Souls on her finger. She hadn't told them about it. Buffy hadn't told them about the first Slayer, Sineya. All they knew from Buffy and Faith was, "Train and fight."

These Potentials were half of all those who'd been with Buffy. Faith was shocked they were the only ones left, or at least, the only ones Giles could find. The ones in Faith’s care were so young, from age twelve to sixteen.

"Talitha’s right," Beth said, turning her eyes back to Ripper’s big head as she stroked his floppy ear. The black dog was always by her side, looking sleepy but snapping to when anything unexpected happened. "We’re the unwanted Potentials. The ones Buffy kept are older and follow her orders without any, you know, backtalk."

"Hey, you're not in the army," Faith corrected. That was the difference between her and Buffy. Buffy could make the hard decisions and distance herself from the Potentials, looking at them as assets. Buffy was made to be a general. Faith, on the other hand, had always cared too much about the Potentials she was forced to lead. It was a drawback to getting things done. When she should have been looking at situations with a cold eye and moving the girls into battle, all she thought about was how she wanted them to be happy and safe... and she could do the job better by herself, anyway.

Talitha asked, "Wouldn't it be more effective to fight as if we were soldiers? There's no room for individuality and sentiment when you fight evil."

Faith wondered what "evil" meant for Talitha. She was raised in a strict religious home that taught her to sacrifice for her church, which forbade the things she was really interested in.

Faith knew Chimera picked the Slayers, though she didn't know how. Chimera probably liked to mix it up, keep things interesting. Still, Faith didn't know why she chose Talitha. Girl was a computer whiz, not a brawler. She was a Willow, not a Buffy. She was so into digital life that the real world probably didn’t exist for her. Her hero was Tony Stark, for one thing, which caused the other Potentials to give her the side-eye. And like Stark, she worked all the time. She never paid attention to mealtimes. When she ate, it was quick garbage snacks. Sure, Faith ate like that -- especially in England, where she practically survived on the cheap, Irish equivalent of the chip butty -- but in London, Faith wasn’t a growing girl. Talitha was fourteen.

Talitha understood PROTIS like nobody else. She was even working on concepts she developed with him, which blew Faith away. Faith was sure PROTIS had given Talitha Internet access. Even worse, they were keeping it a secret from Faith.

Talitha's parents were small-town people with a strong faith. Their lives revolved around their religion. They sold cleaning goods from their home in what sounded like a pyramid scheme organized by their church. The family was tight and insular, encouraged to turn away from the technology overtaking the world.

The father was the absolute ruler of the family and made decisions for his wife and daughter, including how they fixed their hair and what clothes they wore. He decided that Talitha should be schooled with other church children in an education that relied heavily on religious obedience and less on scientific questioning. Despite that, she understood how appliances in her home worked and fixed them when they broke.

Talitha's mother was the one who got her started reading at the local public library. The church permitted the women to meet once a week for a break from their normal, regulated lives. Her mother picked out books for her daughter to read while she swapped recipes and stuff. Soon Talitha realized she wasn't being watched and she could read whatever she wanted.

She read about computers, science and math. The library had desktops no-one used in the day, so she made herself at home. A friendly librarian offered to let her bring a laptop home overnight and she did, without telling her parents. Nobody bothered her as long as she was quiet. She hacked into a neighbor’s wireless and began to spend a lot of time in online chatrooms using the name Talik.

That led to her to a boy in a neighboring town, Ramon, though he called himself Ray. They would chat on the boards of a local booster site, _Nebraska is for Lovers_. His username was NB4lzrz.

Ray was a funny, skinny, Latino, openly gay teen in a town that worshipped big, white, straight male athletes. As her parents were terrified of the “militant homosexual agenda,” Talitha knew that if her parents found out about Ray, the worst of the punishments that would inevitable come down would be cutting her off from her friend.

Talitha and Ray only met in person once in all the time they talked online. He gave her an old laptop so she didn’t have to rely on the library. He was the one who forwarded the letter from Giles to an account they shared. Apparently, Giles had sent a physical letter, but Talitha never received it. That explained why her parents started searching her room.

She was lucky they didn't freak altogether, but they had no way of knowing what a Slayer was. It probably seemed like an angel thing to them. Still, when Talitha’s father discovered the laptop and destroyed it, he accused her of demon-possession. (When Talitha told the Potentials this, it also drew a lot of sideways glances from them.)

Talitha's parents decided to send her to a boarding school the church set up in another state. She had heard about it: girls got up at five for two hours of slaughtering and butchering chickens; then cooking, cleaning, and sewing until nine; boxing and labeling the church’s cleaning products until noon; non-stop classes in religion the rest of the day; prayer and forced sharing until bedtime at nine. The boys did hard labor in the fields and on the property, and made the church’s cleaning products. Sexes were strictly segregated. Electronics were nowhere to be found. No friendships were allowed in the compound, and no communication was allowed to the outside world. Those who disobeyed disappeared for months, to return skinnier and quieter. Locked in her parents' house, Talitha felt she was already halfway living in that place.

Ray, not having heard from his friend, decided to contact her. He waited until her parents left the house to knock at her window. He looked beat up and out-of-it, but all he said was that he had noticed something odd around town, stranger than normal.

Talitha and Ray ran away to San Francisco in his mother's tiny, mostly-unused car that Talitha hot-wired. Neither of them could drive, but she picked it up away. Ray had a little money. He asked for handouts in gas stations. Talitha was too embarrassed to ask how. When they got to the Bay Area, Ray dumped the car over an embankment on a hillside filled with redwoods. They walked out of the forest and hitchhiked to Buffy’s.

Ray wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms, but it was OK. He was star-struck by San Francisco. He soon disappeared into the city, never to come back. Talitha missed him and worried about him. Faith knew what that was like. She asked PROTIS to look for him, but even PROTIS turned up nothing.

Talitha had a knack with machines. She was able to get Darna's music player working again. Everyone was impressed by that. And, when Ames was taking apart a motor, Talitha sat nearby, named every part, explaining what it did or why it needed to be fixed. Finally, Ames stared at her and asked, "Have you ever taken one of these apart?" Talitha answered, "No." Ames handed the tools to her and said, "Get started." Talitha did, getting everyone involved.

It was no surprise she was trying to figure out how Slayers worked.

Faith answered, "My first trainer told me the most important part of being a Slayer is saving humans from supernaturals that are stronger and want to hurt them. Whatever you do to get that job done is OK by me. Whatever works."

"Supernaturals? You mean like us, like the ones the government is hunting? Or like the thing that’s hunting us?"

Beth was worked up. She could get hysterical. She was real young, like Sayara, who was the closest in the group to Beth, but a lot more calm. Sayara said something about Ripper, which redirected Beth’s attention and chilled out the flighty kid. Not that Faith blamed Beth for being insecure.

Anyone looking in on Beth’s family from the outside would have thought it normal, but inside the house, her father was unpredictable and violent. She learned to tip-toe around him but still could never avoid his sudden roars of rage and flying fists. Even so, when a neighbor’s dog had puppies, Beth brought one home with a small sliver of hope that her dad would like it.

The father mistreated the puppy from the day it came into the house, the same way he did her and her mother. The puppy was too young to understand that it was doing nothing wrong. It was too friendly to get out of his way the way Beth tried to.

One night, the dog, no longer small, growled and showed his teeth at her father when he was coming to hit Beth. Her dad backed off in a hurry, then recovered his composure and yelled, "That's it: the mutt has to go. I'm calling the pound tomorrow. A dog that turns on his master is no good."

She ran away with the dog that night. Ripper led her to a railroad yard where some older kids were sitting around. When she told them about her dad and the dog, they said they were going to California and she could come with them if she wanted.

The older kids looked after her. They showed her how to jump trains, how to beg for food, how to hide in plain sight. If anyone got funny, the dog was right there. They renamed him Ripper from his original name, Robby, though he’d never bitten anyone.

When they got to San Francisco, Ripper pulled her towards Buffy's house. Buffy took her in without a word and hauled her to the bathtub. Ripper followed and Buffy didn't object, dirty as the dog was.

Beth said Buffy was nice enough, but she seemed uncomfortable around the dog. She was also concerned that Beth was away from her parents at such a young age.

As soon as Beth met Sayara, they became inseparable. They bonded over the dog and how small they both were. Beth had been teaching Sayara English and learning phrases in the languages Sayara spoke. The girl from the Philippines, Darna, also hung out almost exclusively with Beth and Sayara.

"By supernaturals, I mean vampires and demons that live off people," Faith answered. "You’ve been hunted?"

"By humans, yeah," Day confirmed.

"Well, not hunted with, you know, guns and stuff, "Val corrected, "but there are, like, checkpoints everywhere, and Summers’ house was watched all the time by surveillance and this vigilante group."

"The people in that group weren’t very smart," Talitha added. "I used to go out and talk to them. I understand them, the fear, the stereotyping, the anger and urge to control. I grew up with that, believing the fantasy even though the truth is staring you in the face."

"Taal made fools of them," Darna added with a hint of awe. "She learned much."

"I told them I was Buffy’s sister’s friend, staying the summer. I offered to give them information on the house and its inhabitants. I told them some wild stories and had them running around chasing each other. Of course, I never let on that I held positive feelings about supernaturals, and nobody’d ever seriously suspect me as a threat."

Faith was impressed at how resourceful Talitha was. She mighta been better than Faith thought at surviving on her own. In fact, when Faith looked at her motley crew of Potentials, she was proud of all of them for having the guts to strike out into the unknown, almost all alone. Faith's Watcher found her and took her in, which was a little different. Of course, the Watcher was killed too soon. Faith had to watch her die. When Faith got away, she practically flew to Sunnydale, more in fear than hope. She never really found safety anywhere. Her Potentials, though... she wanted to give them safety.

"Talitha also broke the other watcher," Darna stated.

"You mean the demon that was chasing you?" Faith asked, very confused. The girls looked down, faces drawn down in concerned frowns. Nobody spoke.

Holiday grabbed a bag of marshmallows. Noticing this, Val opened a big bar of chocolate and passed it around with a box of graham crackers. The girls gratefully started putting together s'mores. Day flipped her hand at the fire pit a few times, reciting "ignis apparebit."

Faith almost burst out laughing. The words sounded like a curse Elmer Fudd would say to Bugs Bunny. Needless to say, Faith never got that spell to work. It didn't work for Day, either.

Darna made the same motion that Day made, but different, more dancer-like. When she said the words, the fire in the pit lit up.

Day mumbled a glum "thank you" and put her marshmallow on a stick. The heavenly smell of burnt sugar filled the air.

Faith glanced at the two babies. They were now fully awake, watching with wide eyes the magic-making Potentials. Faith hefted the closest, Ash, into her lap and lifted her t-shirt to let the baby fasten onto her breast. Embarr turned her attention to her sister, envy and longing on her face.

Darna giggled at her success in lighting the fire. She picked up her earlier statement with, "Taal, she conquered the machine. Talinghaga."

Talitha smiled shyly. "No, I just fixed their programming so they didn't see us, especially when we left Buffy's."

"Machines?"

"Yeah, there's spies everywhere these days. For our own protection, they say, from, you know, supernaturals." Val made an exaggerated scared face, all googly eyes and a deep frown. The girls laughed.

Talitha explained, "Buffy decided we all had to move. I told the Watchers to register nothing unusual from the minute we left the house 'til we got to Stockton. I mean, Willow probably could have magicked them dead, but my way was non-lethal." Faith knew that Buffy had taken her group of Potentials to a stronghold in Santa Rosita, but she hadn't known the details of the get-away.

"Stop talking about them like they're human," Day requested in a disgusted tone.

"So, what are they, the Watchers?"

"That's what they call the surveillance systems," Beth explained.

"Like it's supposed to be watching over us. Like it's a good thing," Val added with bitter sarcasm.

There was so much Faith didn't know any more about life on Earth. She supposed she had been protected, staying in Maine with PROTIS watching out for her. It was jarring, though. She was only gone, like, maybe three years. It felt like a hundred.

"PROTIS has been pretty good for me," Faith mused.

"PROTIS is us here in the wild, though, where he can't hurt anyone," Day answered. "Check it. Computers have put people out of work on a massive scale. Social inequality is worse than ever."

"And not just here. Poor countries produce raw materials to make tech, but even in those countries, robots are now cheaper than humans to do the work," Val stated.

"Meanwhile, the wealthy modify the genes of their kids."

"Creating a new sort of superhuman," Talitha added.

"That's what Kimber is, you know... an early adopter of the brave new world," Day asserted.

"Not her fault her parents make her that way," Darna grumbled.

"Oh, man, don't get me started on the parents of those super kids -- they're behind the drive to identify the superhumans who weren't pre-selected by their special doctors."

"I don't think so," Beth inserted in a quiet voice.

"No, I'm right. We are the ones who threaten their social position. They were born into it, but we took it for ourselves."

"Well, we didn't completely have a choice." Faith was having trouble following Day's logic.

Val jumped in. "She's not talking about Slayers. The rich aren't the only ones to use computers and gene modification to get ahead."

"There's another fringe," Ames remarked. "Most people rely on gadgets for daily life, but they don't make the rules."

"That's right," Talitha agreed. "It's the middle class that's down, with no babies and no jobs. Meanwhile, the poor, when not living in trash mounds, are out there doing the dirty work for the wealthy techno-elite."

"You would know," Day said with a sardonic smile.

"Much as I love a good fight, this isn't one," Faith suggested. "People do a lot of crappy things when they feel they don't have a choice. Talitha's not one of them. Let's agree on that and move on."

Day raised her arms and hands in a gesture of reconciliation. Val rolled her eyes and said, "Robots turned out to be cheaper for oppressing people, too, even if Ultron made robot servitude dead uncertain."

Beth piped in with, "Utron's servants had no say in what they did."

Talitha added, "Current programmers are more careful to make the new generation of robots like microwaves, easy to turn on and off, with no sense of anything but their function. PROTIS is unusual."

"Handy for a world where robots spent their time disarming bombs and tracking down superhumans."

Faith wondered what happened after the Dark Hour to make technology jump so far ahead of where it used to be.

"Getting back to these Watchers, couldn't Willow deprogram them? She used to be good at computers," Faith observed.

"She is not Taal!" Darna exclaimed, gathering up the sticks around the campfire and setting up more s'mores.

Holiday had given the job of leading the housecleaning to Darna, who organized the girls using music. She was a massive fan of something called "M-Pop" or "TBOM," a form of electronic music that emerged while Faith had been in Jotunheim.

Faith was surprised to hear that musicians fell on hard times when the End of Magic happened. Nobody was buying music. In fact, the few labels still in business had to close. They threw away all the masters, or deleted them, because what good were they? Musicians had no concept of what they used to do for a living and had no idea what to do with themselves. With magic gone, machines created a background noise that was piped in everywhere. It was geared towards keeping people passive and eager to buy.

When magic returned, people began to recreate their own sounds. They called it "The Bonds of Melody" or "TBOM" in the East and, in the West, "Meat-Pop" or "M-Pop." The good thing was artists were paid royalties that were automatically credited each time a tune played. But it all sounded like machine music to Faith. It was all programming, made with computers, no live playing. There were only a few throwback bands like Val's, located in larger cities that could support them.

Faith hadn't realized it, but PROTIS had probably built one of the largest archives of "old" music on Earth. Faith wondered if the collection was Loki's idea. He knew how much she loved music. She usually had the radio on when they had a car. She sang along to the songs. But even without that, she was always singing some song or other, totally out of context, like her life has a soundtrack. When things were good, Loki would smile with affection. Sometimes she'd even dance for him. Eventually, he'd join her. He had great moves.

Thinking of those times made her tear up. She swallowed a couple of times and looked over at Darna. She worried about her more than the others.

Darna came from Manila. Her father was a police detective. They had a comfortable life, but her father was strict and suspicious. He even did a background check on the parents of a classmate Darna brought over once to play. He didn't like the results, so he told Darna she couldn't be friends with the girl.

Darna did a deep dive into the new TBOM/M-Pop to deal with her father's paranoia. She dreamt of becoming a backup dancer in the videos broadcast on Manila's large screens, maybe being discovered and groomed to be a star. She stayed well-dressed but street-ready, clothed in the "fight with style" fashions of the videos she loved, especially the hard-edge and futuristic Manila band, "Death to Boredom."

One day, Darna woke up to hear yelling and banging. She came out of her room as the police dragged her father out the door. Her hysterical mother explained he was being taken to jail. He was charged with corruption. He had provided protection and laundered money for drug and human trafficking rings. A new computer program set up to audit police activity found him with his pants open.

Human guards found him hanging in his cell the morning after they arrested him.

Darna soon learned that everything she took for granted was built on graft. She and her mother were set to lose their home and credit, though no-one made a move to take the family savings. Still, she lost the music tutor her father hired after Darna practically begged and threatened for months.

Darna's mother had never worked outside the house. After the death, her mother didn't want to be seen by others. She believed people were talking about her. Darna had to take care of the home. Her only escape was her music and dreams.

When Darna received Giles' letter, she didn't know what she could do about it, since she had to look after her mother. A few weeks after the letter came, however, her mother left the house and died after stepping into traffic. The doctor said she was distracted, not paying attention.

Her mother's sister came to stay with Darna while the funeral was organized. She stayed in their apartment and settled the bills. The aunt withdrew her mother's remaining money from the bank and planned to take Darna back to her town.

Instead, Darna took the money, which she considered her inheritance, and left. She went to her tutor's house and showed her the letter from San Francisco. She said she had enough money to buy a ticket. Her teacher arranged for the flight. In return, Darna left all her music with the teacher, who said it was a shame she was leaving and she wished there was another choice. She shouldn't have to give up her music, but Darna replied that if she kept it, she would end up buried in a small town.

Darna was in California two days after meeting with her teacher. She had nothing but a purse full of pesos and the clothes on her back. She was thirteen.

Her teacher kept her promise and saved Darna's collection of music. PROTIS was able to retrieve it somehow. It formed the constant backdrop when people worked around the house.

Faith asked PROTIS to find more recordings, whatever was around, as a gift to all the Potentials, but mostly to Darna. The growing collection also provided a satisfying source of frustration for Willow, who could not get PROTIS to provide access to the outside world for their phones or Faith's computer. PROTIS said granting access was too dangerous. Even Faith knew that a call could be routed through so many sites it would become untraceable, but she didn't mind being cut off from the world. She figured that collecting music for Darna would not put them at risk.

Faith was more watchful over Darna than the others because her parents had killed themselves. Darna showed no signs of giving up, though. In fact, when Faith looked at the Potentials who were collected under her roof, she was amazed that they had survived so much, that they weren't more damaged, that they avoided the choices Faith felt she, and probably Holiday, had to make. She didn't know about Ames, who never talked about her life. Faith was used to being called negative all her life; she thought she was being realistic. Being accused of negativity was like an automatic rejection by others, and since that never felt good, Faith steered clear of them. Some people were born looking on the dark side, Michael J. Fox even said so. That was why she was kinda happy the Potentials were there. She had to be strong for them and there was no time to dwell.

It was funny that the house formed into natural divisions. There was Holiday who was leading with enthusiasm on one side. Even though she put everything down in that world-weary way, she was full of life and wanted to have an impact on the world. Then there was the group that gathered around a reluctant Ames. She dealt with the natural world with extreme and almost-resigned patience. Ames and Day seemed to respect each other, even if they didn't get on like fire. They acted like they respected Faith even more. As long as that was the case, she had the upper hand and things went smoothly.

But if Day was like Faith in the showy and cynical, Ames was the strong, silent type, the type Faith thought she should settle down with some day. Then she fell in love with Loki. He was anything but a hero from a Western. Sure, he was silent sometimes - actually, when he closed himself off. But Loki would rather rage or throw himself into work than herd sheep or lay down rows of seeds and watch them grow. He was no Ames. He wasn't a drink of water on a dry day. At his best, he was a bottle of rare champagne, making her feel light and excited, or he was like a fine wine that she could sip and contemplate, making her feel warm and open, or he was like some real sassy whiskey that went down smooth, making her feel aware of everything and liberated. At his worst, he made her feel dizzy and ill.

Faith realized she was solid thirsty. She hadn't had a drink since she found out she was pregnant. 

She put the sleepy Aisling down and picked up the eager Embarr. Emb gave her mother a curious look and instead of feeding, reached out for the fire, which was a safe distance away. The Potentials laughed. The babies had the girls wrapped around their fingers. They were always running to see why they were crying, dangling toys in front of them, watching them to see what they would do next.

Faith gazed down at the dark hair and green eyes of her child, who began to nurse in a distracted way. She worried she'd eventually forget what Loki looked like. With the girls, that would never happen.

They were the size of five-year-olds, though only weeks old. Fortunately, while the girls all marveled that the babies were unusually big for their age, nobody speculated any further than maybe big babies were a Slayer thing. That was something Ames suggested.

Day nudged Val, saying, "Stoke up the fire." Val did something that looked like jazz hands. Faith glanced down at Embarr, who was smiling. Aisling threw her pudgy little hands in the air and waved them back and forth.

Day never stopped trying to do magic. She and Val were about as hopeless at it as Faith was. Darna made a casual, graceful movement with her hands. The fire leapt up in a roar of bright light. Darna was the success story of the group.

Faith told Willow she wanted the Potentials to learn magic. She said it would give them something to keep their mind off monsters. She thought it would keep Willow busy, too.

"Willow, I was thinking."

Willow looked up from her book to eye Faith with suspicion.

"Why don't you teach me and the girls a little magic? It would be good for us."

"Not everyone can do magic," Willow warned. "It's not something you can just pick up overnight. It requires discipline and a... an understanding of worldly phenomena. It's not a game of Parcheesi."

Even though Faith didn't know what Parcheesi was, she wanted to roll her eyes. Instead she shrugged her shoulders. "I'd rather do WeeGee."

Willow hesitated. "I should be getting back to Buffy."

"If we learn a few spells, we can defend ourselves better when you're gone."

So Willow started teaching them. But Willow's method was way different than Loki's. Loki pulled the magic out of his surroundings, but it was also like a blanket that held him together. Willow used formulas and ingredients and rules, like she carried a notebook and went to the grocery store to buy off a list. Loki tried to get Faith to feel the magic around her, while Willow pointed at it with words and gestures and artefacts. Her way was like using a manual to drive a car, while Loki was speed and motion and the car itself, and the road.

Still, Faith had to admit that Loki's way hadn't worked with her. Maybe books and equipment were what she needed. And thank goodness that was what Willow wanted to use. She had been powerful enough to end the world, but that was Willow on steroids. She no longer had access to that kind of magic. She was saving her magical energy.

Learning from Willow turned out to be too much like school for Faith. She got restless, despite her interest. Willow didn't explain why things worked the way they did and she wouldn't demonstrate or apply the lessons to real-life scrapes. Instead, she'd describe something, then talk some more about it. Sometimes she'd assign reading from one of the huge books in the library

She wanted the girls to learn old languages. Faith couldn't pronounce the words. If she hadn't actually done some magic, she'd think she was a total loser.

Even the Potentials who paid attention sucked, though some had glimmerings of being good at magic. Some took notes, especially Beth and Talitha, who seemed to be writing whole books. Faith was tempted to copy off them, but she didn't even know where to start with the information.

When Faith privately suggested a more hands-on approach to teaching, Willow retorted that, "This was your idea. I warned you not many people can use magic."

So Faith started asking questions during lessons like, "This cloaking spell, can you use it when a vampire is following you, and there's eight cops standing on the corner so you can just dust the vamp right there without the cops knowing?"

Willow put on her patient voice. "First you have to learn the technique, and before that, you have to know the words. That's what I'm teaching."

"I was just wondering: when do we use this spell?"

"Well, it all depends. This cloaking spell only covers vision. Some demons can smell you. Some can hear your heart beating."

"What good is it, then?"

"Most humans wouldn't be able to smell or hear you."

"We don't fight humans."

"You're not always fighting, Faith. You might be gathering information. Or you might be trying to get away from those eight cops." She smiled at the class.

"But..."

The smile disappeared. "Please save your questions until after the class. Sure, there are more complex cloaking spells, but you have to learn to crawl before you can walk."

"I dig that, but why do we have to say words? Can't you just feel it happen?"

"Maybe, after you practice the technique for a long time, it will become second nature. Like Slaying. When you first pick up a knife, you don't know what to do with it, but if you practice enough, you know exactly how it behaves and what to do with it. I mean, you can't learn how to use a bow and arrow right away, right?"

"OK," Faith said. She didn't add that handling knives had always been natural for her. Just having one in her hand felt right. Bows and arrows turned out to be no sweat. That was one of the benes of being a Slayer: you got Chimera's instincts, and she was a trained and dedicated warrior. But Faith kept her mouth shut. Not everyone there might have learned like her, even if they were Potentials who supposedly were born with the aptitude to fight and kill. And magic wasn't like Slaying.

When Willow told the girls to demonstrate the cloaking spell at the end of that class, they didn't have a grasp of how to do it, or enough of a memory of Willow fake-showing them how. It reminded Faith of that _Harry Potter_ movie, where the students were thrown into it first day and left to their own devices. Willow wasn't walking around like a yoga teacher showing people how to improve their body positions. She stood rigidly in front of the class, like she was terrified to move. Faith figured this was how Willow learned in school and everything she really liked she got on her own outside of school. Willow was more of a doer than a show-er. Faith knew Willow used assistants once or twice, but Willow walked them through everything. The assistants weren't independent. Even Giles deferred to her now.

The girls tried to help each other with the cloaking spell, without knowing what they were doing, it was pathetic. The only exception was Darna, the Hermione of the class. She managed to disappear with a less-complicated motion. She explained she thought the words in her language and the movement was better suited to her body. Willow still insisted her way was better.

Ames was closed off in that class, as usual. She always acted aloof, like it was beneath her to be there, but Faith had seen Ames and Ling raise fire and levitate leaves in the orchard when they thought no-one was looking. Even though Willow seemed pleased at Darna's progress, Ames still didn't trust Willow.

Faith had also seen her babies imitate Ames that day in the woods and levitate some leaves into the air. A moment later, the leaves exploded into flames. Faith knew that if her daughters were magical, she didn't want to be left behind. It was bad enough she didn't have normal schooling. It's like your kids learning math and you can't help them with their homework. Ames was there for the girls, but she stood back and observed, too. Faith wondered if she trusted them.

Ames was old before her time. She didn't talk much and rarely initiated a conversation. The only thing she and Ames could really discuss in depth was baseball, and even then, Ames was pulling for a team that consistently lost both before and after the End of Magic. The Red Sox were never that bad.

But mostly, Ames liked to be outdoors tending to the garden or the orchard. Faith thought if Ames had some animals, then she would have been happy. The more serious girls liked her. And while most of the girls dressed down, you wouldn't have known Ames was a girl to look at her. It was like she was trying to obliterate any femininity she had, like that was her invisibility cloak.

Ames would have rather been in the garage than the kitchen. She showed the girls how tools worked, how to take them apart, how to clean them, how to fix them. Soon, almost everyone was watching her. By the time she got to the last implement, others were helping her or trying the tools on their own. They all wanted to learn.

These girls weren't like Faith was at their age. Faith just skated through life. The Potentials looked for a chance to do something more important, maybe because they weren't really Slayers. Watching the girls teach each other, Faith got to thinking she should organize lots of classes for them. She thought they could do much more, but like her, maybe none of them saw a long life in their future. She suspected even Kimber expected to die young, and her obsession with boys and forced cheerfulness where her way of compensating. Faith wanted to plant the hope in them that they could do something more than wait to die or have other people tell them how to act. Ames had shown them how to do that by just getting on with life like it was normal. Again, she reminded Faith of Helen, with her quiet determination and spooky calm.

As if Ames knew that Faith was thinking about her, she took the s’more that she made off the stick and handed it to Faith. _So good_ , Faith thought, as the buttery chocolate, coarse graham crackers and melted marshmallow dissolved in her mouth. Embarr reached for the cookie. Faith wondered if they were ready to eat solid food. Ames said they might be ready, but Willow insisted they couldn’t be.

Faith felt sad that she was ticked off at Willow. She overheard Willow talking to Kimber when they were getting together a list of things to pick up in Greenville.

Kimber complained, "… the other girls. You know what I mean. It’s hard to make her understand."

"Try using smaller words," Willow replied, "you know, simple words."

Kimber left. Faith stepped out to block Willow's exit.

"Talking me up to the girls again? Saying I'm simple?"

Willow's eyes got wide. "No, not at all! We were talking about..."

"She's fourteen years old. I know all the words she knows... nearly."

"Yeah, but... you have to be patient with her. She got in a lot of trouble..."

"That photo thing is trouble?"

Willow shrugged and said, "Why do you twist everything I say? Why are you so defensive?"

Faith was nearly apoplectic. She wasn't the one with the problem. But appalled at having criticized Kimber, who was just a kid, she dialed it back. "Look, it's just that I'm tired and scatterbrained, what with the babies and all these strangers in the house, people I have to take care of."

"That's completely understandable."

"And here you are, undermiring me."

Willow smiled brightly, the edges of her mouth all wiggly. "Faith, nobody's undermiring you."

"What I meant was you are taking away my authority, making the girls think I'm stupid."

"They don't think you're stupid."

"You think I'm stupid."

"No, I don't." Giving her the big, innocent eyes.

"Whatever."

Faith figured both Willow and Kimber were happy to go to Greenville and get some distance. Willow was gonna leave soon, Faith knew that. Kimber... Faith was just going to have to deal with her. But they were all pretty uncomfortable as they packed their things and said "See you later," leaving Faith with her resentment.

It had been Willow's idea to bring the Potentials to Maine. Willow was always trying to protect Buffy. They both just assumed Faith was there to do whatever they wanted, have strangers show up with hardly any notice or consideration, dragging who knows what after them, dragging her back into a fight against an enemy they hadn't been able to defeat or even identify. Buffy assumed she could give orders and Faith would follow them. She never thought Faith might have other responsibilities or maybe she didn't want to fight. She certainly didn't want her daughters in danger.

She wondered what would have happened if her life had been different. What if she'd been with Loki and the babies had already been born? What if she had left Maine? What if she'd gone evil or something?

Not even a phone call. Willow just showed up and expected Faith to accept it. She wondered when she got the rep for being a pushover.

She was also relieved that Willow was gone because Willow noticed the babies paying attention as she taught magic. Willow said it was like cats, attracted to motion and noise. Faith wondered if that was what she really thought. She hadn't mentioned how big they were.

Faith returned to the topic of electronic monitors. "When you said Watcher, I was a little confused. You know that Slayers used to have Watchers."

The faces in the circle fell into "duh" expressions, complete with eyeball rolls.

Faith continued, "So, these Watchers hunt supernaturals? How does that work?"

"It's not the machines doing the hunting," Beth explained.

"They don't have to," Day remarked bitterly. "Humans do it for them."

Beth added. "Most people don't have jobs. They have time to hunt."

"They're getting paid for it?" Faith asked incredulously.

"Hardly. That's the sick part. They'd probably do it for free," Day replied.

"Is fear," Sayara said. "Is fear and have person for hate."

"The world started changing so fast after that alien attack on New York, and then suddenly there were superhumans," Val added, "so people associate bad things with all that. Then that bonehead Stark flew in..."

"Tony Stark isn't superhuman," Talitha corrected.

"He created Ultron."

"Yeah, but he also defeated Ultron."

"With the Avengers," Beth corrected.

"With another..."

Day put her hand up to stop Talitha right there. "Stark greased our slide into this glorious tech future where humans have no reason to live. It's Ultron's dream without the blood."

"Stark is a hero."

"Sure he is," Day sneered. "Like Hulk. Destroys more than he saves."

Ling came into the discussion. "Thanks to Stark, people eat in United States. All people eat."

"They just don't do anything else, like work," Day retorted, "unless they build their masters."

That was Val's cue to add, "Who built the Watchers?"

Day added, "Yeah. Don't forget whose side he's on in the drive against supernaturals."

"He doesn't want them killed! He just wants them identified."

"You down with that, Tally?" Day asked.

Talitha looked down and stammered, "N-no, not really."

Darna asserted, "Taal stopped the Watcher. She helped us. She is our friend."

"I thought we were arguing about Kimber," Faith said, innocently. Everyone turned to stare at her, and when she smiled, they burst out laughing.

"I get worked up over drama," Day admitted.

"And I get too involved, too," Talitha replied. "But look at PROTIS. He helps us. He's not out to kill us."

Faith had to admit it was true they all got along with PROTIS, and he could talk to them, even the ones who didn't speak English. He counseled them on English with a patience that only a machine could have. He kept them entertained. He was practically Kimber's confessor. A few, like Ames, didn't go face-to-face with him if they didn't have to. He wasn't part of their necessary existence. But the rest took him for granted in a way Faith never could. Maybe they grew up with more technology than she had. And despite the Watchers, they trusted PROTIS without question.

They also trusted her, which blew her away. She wouldn't have trusted her if she was in their situation.

Ames uncharacteristically spoke up. "Day's right. Why be a Slayer when the people you're trying to save hunt you down?"

Faith tried to stamp down the negative part of her that agreed with Ames. She had to be a role model for these girls. So she said with as much conviction as she could muster, "People are innocent."

Sayara added, "Kimber attacked by people. She innocent."

"Then there's my dad, who attacked everyone," Beth mumbled.

"People are weak," Ames stated.

Faith put Embarr down so she could emphasize what she was saying with her hands. "Yeah, but ... people need to be protected because stronger creatures will take advantage." 

Talitha said, "Humans don't protect the weak. They take advantage of them. They line up behind a bully because they feel it gives them protection and power. They'd tear down their protectors if it got them to safety in their minds. Nobody's innocent."

"Slow down, Hobbes!" Faith exclaimed. She got confused faces all around. "Not the tiger." That made them even more baffled. "You know, the one who thought people needed a strong king?"

"The last thing we need is a king!" Beth shouted.

Faith hated being the voice of wisdom. "What I'm saying is, you can't expect that people will screw you over. You can't go into life expecting that, or that's all you're going to find. I know, 'cause I did that for a long time. Then I decided it was better to work for those who can't help themselves. Trust is part of that.

"Look, life is hard no matter what choices you make, and sometimes, you're lucky to even be able to make choices. I've been on the other side of hurting others. I used to think being a Slayer made me better, because I was stronger and faster. I used to take whatever I wanted, anything and everything. I slept with lots of people and then I moved on, probably the only thing I did right. I thought I had it all under control, killing demons, gettin' high, gettin' laid."

The youngest Potentials blushed and looked away. She plunged on, trying not to ramble so much.

"Anyway, I ran into Buffy's crowd and I realized that I had nothing, no friends, no place, no love. All those people I used or hurt, they weren't gonna wait around for me to come back and do it again.

"You probably know I went to prison." They were all staring at her now, wrapped up. "I turned myself in.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can't assume that people are your enemy. And even if they are, they're still the ones you are fighting for. You gotta stand up and fight back. You don't want to become the demons you're working to get rid of."

There was general silence, until Beth said, completely inappropriately, "Did you know the father of your kids? I mean he was a normal guy, right?"

That threw Faith for a loop. She supposed they all wanted to know. They'd never asked. Maybe a single mom with a load of dough in the middle of the woods was every day to them. But, since she was opening up, well...

"We were together, and yeah, he was a guy, mostly, well, obviously. As for normal... I mean, define normal. The important thing was how we felt about each other and how far we would go for each other. We were together in every way possible. And he was special."

"So, where is he now?"

Faith sighed, "He made a sacrifice to keep his family safe." She could feel those damned tears again.

A few nodded in understanding. The ones who leaned forward ready to ask more were quelled by Day, who coughed and gave them a round of looks.

"I like it here," Beth stated.

"Do you think we can have kids?" Val asked. "We're not really Slayers."

"I honestly don't know," Faith replied. "You can get tattoos, which Slayers can't get, at least not the human way, so ... maybe?"

Val shook her head, "All my tattoos are real old. And you have one, too."

"Yeah... it's also old. But I don't want to lie. It can be hard being a Slayer. The life means being alone. You can't have a relationship because nobody understands you. Nobody satisfies you. Even Buffy. The only ones she really connected with were vampires..." Their eyes all got round, so Faith quickly backtracked, "Or something like that. Supernaturals."

Faith thought that there was really no reason for her to still be a Slayer. When the Potentials came along, she thought that was the moment that anyone could seize their own power and they didn't have to take it from someone else. But just as the Potentials turned to Buffy for protection, they had to do it again with her. Survival was what it was all about. And these were kids. They didn't deserve to be hunted, not by demons, not by the anti-supernaturals, the so-called normal people, the ones they were trying to protect.

"Buffy dates vampires?"

"Um... you'd have to ask Willow." That slowed their roll to a grinding standstill. "Taking her side, it's hard to meet someone who can keep up with a Slayer, or anyone powerful. Kennedy chose Willow, you know. That's how tough a person has to be. Guys, especially, are going to be bigger disappointments than usual."

"We got everything we need here, without boys," Day stated.

"Boys are good for something," Val mused. She put her finger up to Embarr, who curled her little hand around it with a look of concentration. The enraptured baby gurgled up a tiny bubble on her bottom lip.

Faith began with a tentative, "I know you all have reason to mistrust men, starting with your fathers."

They looked at each other with surprised expressions, except for Ling, who glanced down with glum concentration.

"Men may seem like your enemies, not just individual guys, but the way they act when they're together. But that doesn't mean they are all going to hurt you. It's like Tally's friend -- he helped her. So did Beth's friends.

"It boils down to, you've got to act like people will stand up, like things are gonna to your way." Faith could feel the resistance from most of the Potentials. She was so bad at the motivation thing. "You're Potentials. You're built to survive, to fight -- you just have to figure out what's worth fighting for.'"

Holiday rolled her eyes.

Faith soldiered on. "I'm dead serious here. I get that there are people who are going to hurt you. Let's face it, there's a demon out there who has a knife or some kind of ritual axe with your name on it, but that's not gonna hurt as much as the person who lets you down. Maybe that person has problems you don't know about.

"You take all the people you know. How many of them are evil? Sure, some of them are weak or afraid, some are stupid. But, look around you right now. I trust every one of us. Isn't the life of everyone here worth fighting for? The Potential organizations that used to exist, like Kennedy's or the group I worked with in London, they were stronger because we worked together."

"Those Potentials were destroyed by the demon that's hunting us."

Faith's mothering pep-talk fizzled as the mood grew more serious. She had asked Willow about the demon that was hunting them and got vague answers. These girls hadn't brought it up at all. Might as well jump.

"So, what's the deal with this demon?"

There was a period of silence, then Beth whispered, "It's like a shadow. You can't hide from a shadow, not even in the dark."

"I thought I felt it once," Holiday said.

Faith asked, "Did it take the shape of a person you knew?"

"No. It was just a creepy feeling. I got outta there mad rush."

"So how does it kill? Knife?"

"People just disappear, kind-of into the shadow."

Ames stated, "It sucks the life out of a girl and leaves nothing but a shell."

"Like a vampire?" It didn't sound like Zompires, vampires with mad cow disease. They were easy enough to kill. Flesh-eating bacteria, nanotechnology -- these were things Willow mentioned, none of which Faith wanted around her kids. "If it's hungry, why does it only attack Potentials?"

Nobody had an answer.

Beth grumbled, "No-one's been able to fight it. All you can do is run for it."

"You can't fight it," Ames confirmed.

"Come on. You can fight anything," Faith countered.

They all started telling variations of the same story.

"You know that Buffy went after it once, with a group of girls? One of them was killed."

"It went for one of the Potentials Buffy had with her. It left Buffy alone."

"I heard Buffy tried to attack it, but she couldn't get near it. It threw up some kind of barrier."

"It was dust. Buffy couldn't see through it."

Faith remarked, "If it's what I'm thinking, yeah, it's hard to guard against. It finds out who you care about and takes that shape, so you don't attack. But you can. You can kill it. Just throw a knife at it."

"I heard Buffy's weapons were no good, passed through the cloud and disappeared."

"No kidding. It can do that?"

Ames said, "I saw it. After the dust rolled away, Potential was just lying there on the ground, dead."

"You never told us you were there."

"No point scaring people for no reason."

"OK, that's intense," Faith agreed, "but I've seen worse. Buffy doesn't give up."

Ames grimaced. "Guess that's why Willow wants to go back to San Francisco. Supposed to be working on a spell or something."

Day grumbled, "Willow must not have a spell, or she doesn't want to test it. She left us pretty quick on the way here."

Beth added, "She said she'd go on ahead, and then we lost her."

Talitha explained, "It was Willow's idea to split us up, make the demon do a little work."

Faith said cheerily, "Seems to be working so far." But her words sounded flat to her own ears.

"Before Summers faced it, the weather changed. Ferocious winds, water spouts on the Bay. Only place felt safe was Casa Buffy, and still, one of us died. They figured it was time to get us out of town."

"Demons not on land," Ling added. "Not compete with killer."

Faith thought maybe they were fine if they stayed in the house with a full Slayer.

There was a period of muted thought, then Darna finally asked, "So, what do we do?"

The moon was full, but as soon as Faith noticed its bright glow, it went behind a cloud. It got as dark as the woods can get in Maine, dark like the Void. And yet, a hot wind blew over the group, more arid and quiet than the Maine summer. Despite its warmth, Faith felt a chill. She gathered her daughters in her arms. Close-up, in the firelight, she could see they were staring into the woods bordering the clearing.

"Sirocco," Sayara remarked.

"We call it a Santa Ana," Val replied.

The lights went out in the house, but the moon came back. "I call it time to go into the house," Faith said with determination. "It's late and the kids need sleep. Pick up your trash and bring it. We'll train tomorrow."

The girls moved quickly and quietly. Ames trampled the fire. Darna gathered up left-over litter. Val and Ling trailed Faith to her room. All the girls put the babies to bed at night, a ritual that reflected the family they had become.

As the last Potential cleared the entrance, Faith hung back and said, "PROTIS, is there anyone outside the house?"

PROTIS didn't answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a classic case of getting waylaid by an idea that wasn't part of the original story. It's always bothered me when characters are used as disposable background, so I asked myself questions about what makes a Potential and developed their stories. While I worried it was a complete distraction, I also couldn't let it go. This generated a standstill that lasted over a year! I decided to finally put the very long chapter up and go from here. And if I ever write something beyond this one story, I already know they will be part of it.

**Author's Note:**

> My current drafts are less-developed than those for the previous story, so the story will take longer to complete. However, the story is pretty much written and I intend to post it after much rewriting. Enjoy!


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